A recent discussion on the blog at EzineArticles concerned whether you could write an article of quality in under 500 words.

One of the ideas being tossed around was that it takes more 500 words to deliver a great quality article.

There are a couple of points with which I agree, though overall I disagree.

Points of agreement

=> Many writers are not able to write a useful, helpful and great article in 300 - 500 words. It is too difficult.

Through the years people have found out how important article marketing can be. Articles have been known to drive tons of traffic to a website and are responsible for producing a very nice income for the website owners.

I have turned totally to writing and submitting articles for all my marketing needs. Why? Because I receive top quality visitors to my website.

The people who clicks on my links in the recourse box are all targeted visitors. And it’s all FREE!

The key to successful article marketing is to submit articles that are related to your website content.

Are you having a difficult time writing your book proposal? Take a break and write articles instead. Learning to write quality articles teaches you the skills needed for writing book proposals.

W. Terry Whalin gives tips in his book, Book Proposals that $ell - 21 Secrets to Speed Your Success, to equip authors to write proposals that capture the attention and interest of editors. Terry should know what appeals to editors because he is an editor.

Let me start off by saying that writing is not a skill that you can acquire by enrolling in a university or by reading an e-book (God, what will they think of next?) or even an article that gives you tips. It is an art in itself. As thoughts are accumulated in the mind and are converted into words, the result can be seen on paper. That’s writing. But what we are talking about over here is a totally different subject. We are talking about writing for the web. The web or the virtual world is an extremely fast paced highway where patience is a virtue. Every average netizen (a citizen on the internet) has an extremely small attention span of 30 seconds to 60 seconds. If you are successful in holding the attention of the reader for this time duration, then you have won half the battle. The chances that he will read your complete article are increased manifold. Are you still reading this? Well, then I have managed to hold your attention for about 30 seconds now. See, it’s simple really.

If you are new to article writing, you may want to focus on article content only. That’s a great start because you should write quality articles. But content should not be your sole focus. Titles are crucial in attracting readers to your article. No matter how great your content is, without an appealing title, readers won’t come.

Diane Eble gives great ideas for writing titles in her teleseminar on “How to Choose a Best Selling Title.” Although she is a publishing coach, most of what she says can be applied to article titles as well. Following these tips should help you write great article titles.

Are you using a list to grow your article business? It is an important part of your long-term success. Having a good list can double the amount of income you generate over time. For that reason, it is important to maximize the number of visitors who subscribe to your list.

In order to achieve this, you need a good opt-in (squeeze) page. A squeeze page is a web page where visitors sign into your list. The better your squeeze page, the higher your opt-in percentages. Following, in reverse order, are the top 10 ways to substantially increase your opt-in numbers:

Conversational articles share your heart. Academic articles share your knowledge.

When writing academically, I want to write my best so I use my dictionary, thesaurus, and other writing aids. It’s similar to when I have a formal function to attend. I dress up. To ensure that I have the jiggles under control, I wear a girdle. My girdle serves the same purpose as my writing aids–to keep things tight and right.

No girdles are necessary for daily living. Neither are dictionaries, thesauruses, or writing aid because you’re just being you. That’s the same as when you’re talking to others, you’re focused on sharing your thoughts. If you make a grammatical error and catch it, you correct it and keep going.

Once upon a time, people went to bookstores when they wanted to buy a book. Or at least, that was the theory. Actually, non-bookstore channels have been a big part of book sales for decades—at least since authors like Joe Karbo (”The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches”) back in the 1960s.

For my own books, whether they were self-published, done with a small commercial house, or by a New York conglomerate, I’ve found that selling direct is more secure, more financially rewarding, and far less hassle than sweating out the returns game with the bookstore channel.

The number one challenge for a lot of internet marketers, or any kind of private practice professional or any kind of professional, is knowing what our customer wants to know. Because we do not ask, we create things we think our clients want and then try to sell it to them.

So knowing your market well is very important to your success. Now I want you to step back a minute, take a deep breath, and just think about your area of expertise. Just consider your area of expertise, what you’re an expert in.

Titles of blog posts and web pages are very important. It important to make the title appealing and interesting at the same time, because it is usually the first thing people notice when people see your post or web page in the search results of search engines, feed readers (blogs) and news aggregations.

Interesting about titles in the English language is also the fact that they follow different capitalization rules for the words used in the title compared to the capitalization rules of regular content.