Writing Articles That Persuade: 5 Tips

1. Get to the point: Mention the key value of your piece right at the beginning of the article (AKA the introduction). No one has time to go through two paragraphs of mediocre buildup to your arguably average content.

2. Respect your readers: Treat your audience like they are adults with critical-thinking abilities. They could be doing anything but they choose to read your crap. Do everything in your power to make it worth their time.

3. Ditch the template: There are plenty of “popular formats that give great results” on the web. As someone who has been writing for a while, all of them have their place, but all of them suck. Learn the fundamentals of persuasive writing and create your own style.

4. Criticize your pieces brutally: Channel the energies of Gordon Ramsey when evaluating your work. Grow a spine and label your content as “garbage” if it fits. Complete ownership is crucial to becoming a good writer.

5. Trim the fat: If you can say it in a sentence, do NOT convert it into a paragraph. That’s what SEO writers do and most content written that way rarely gets read.

In the rest of the chapter, I have provided my reasoning behind each of the tips and explained how you can put them into practice.

1. Get to the point

Consider this very article. When you click on the link, you expect five actionable tips that will help you persuade your audience via text. Moreover, when you clicked and the page was loading, your mind was looking forward to valuable content and was hyped up.

This is true for every link we click on the internet. Whether it is articles or videos, we expect the value promised in the anchor text of the link, the heading of the article, or the title of a video. It is a very natural thing.

However, if I dance around the point like a wanker and try to build up to the cream of the article as if it is a Christopher Nolan movie, people get pissed off. Although it may not be explicit, internally I would lose the trust of my audience because I tricked them.

I promised them the value, which is hidden somewhere in the body of the article, and made them read a word salad that doesn’t matter. That’s the easiest way to ensure you will never return.

You need to present the value right at the start to hook them in. Also, present it in a neat, scannable way. Whenever someone starts consuming your content, regardless of your format, it takes a bit of time for them to “immerse themselves” fully.

If you start with a set of bullet points, as I did in this very piece, it will immediately make sense to them, validate the title, and eventually give them time to get into the relevant headspace to enjoy the rest of the piece. 

It is also known as the BLUF technique — bottom line up front. It is used by military folks to transmit urgent messages efficiently.

2. Respect your readers

I’ve written thousands of articles for various clients and publications that had their own guidelines. More often than not, their guidelines had stupid points such as “aim for a readability score of eight on the Hemingway scale” or something.

Of couse, I comply, because that’s the only way I can get the piece approved and eventually published which will get me paid. However, from a marketing standpoint, I absolutely disagree with this approach to content writing.

For instance, this very article will score no less than a ten on the readability metric and yet, I am certain, many writers, bloggers, and marketers will enjoy reading this. There are plenty of long sentences or complex phrases and words that many editors and brand marketers will dislike.

The reason they are all wrong is because I am not writing for a bunch of dumdums. My audience is (aspiring) content creators, marketing and sales professionals, and independent bloggers — all of who are perfectly capable of understanding long sentences easily.

In fact, it is just that which makes my pieces engaging!

To put it into practice, start by doing some research about the topic, so you don’t come across as a novice. If your audience is a bunch of professionals, remember that they don’t need to be explained everything on a chart paper with crayons. They are grown adults who want to learn new things and are experienced in their fields — they can take a few literary ornaments.

3. Ditch the template

If you are starting out as a writer or even have a few years of experience under your belt, you must have seen the barrage of generic “best practices” related to every aspect of an article including lengths of sentences, choice of words, and the general flow.

While each of them brings some utility, for the most part, at least for experienced content entrepreneurs, most of them are useless. Additionally, leaning into them a bit too much can make your pieces inauthentic and mediocre, like most articles on the internet.

The easiest way to get heard is to speak in a unique voice.

The key thing you need to do is to write in a tone and flow that suits the occasion. If you think the article should be 1000 words and deserves a grain of sarcasm, do it. If you believe the message will be relayed better in a set of bullet points that go no more than 300 words, do it.

Keep in mind that the broader objective is to persuade your audience to continue reading and eventually earn their trust. You can’t do either if you sound like an SEO writer who populates their content with filler words to hit a number.

4. Criticize your pieces brutally

No one will tell you if your article sucks (except for me). Your audience will simply click away to someone else’s content, regardless of whether it is detailed guides or videos. If you delude yourself and stay busy patting yourself on the back for tossing up a word salad and hitting publish, you probably will remain where you are in your career forever.

You have to be a savage with yourself and hold your work to a higher standard.

Re-read your articles, rewatch your videos, and roast them. Talk shit about where things can be improved and keep analyzing them inside your head. You will automatically know where you got it right and where things need to get better.

At the same time, it is essential to remain consistent with your work and be patient. Mastery is achieved over time. A good rule of thumb is to publish at least 500 words a day. The keyword here is “publish”, not ideate or draft.

Again, you need to push yourself to become a high-performing professional and that seldom happens when you treat yourself after putting out garbage.

5. Trim the fat

People scan on the internet. There are only a handful of articles by a select few writers that get read word for word. In fact, most of the articles on this very website won’t ever get read. That’s just the brutal reality of the world that we live in.

Anyway, most of the content that even gets “read” doesn’t technically get read because, as I mentioned, people scan through articles, and your goal is to ensure most of what you type deserves more than a quick glance.

Earlier, I would write enormously large articles that could be trimmed to 40% of their original size. It took a lot of unapologetic accountability to swallow that bitter pill and now things are much better. 

You can also practice this by writing other long-form articles and writing their summaries. This will also help you master the art of extracting the minutes from any document, which is a valuable skill in itself.

Conclusion: First goal is to make them stay

We all write for a purpose. It could be making a sale, earning a subscriber, or raking in that sweet ad revenue. However, it all begins by giving your audience a reason to consume your content and earning their trust.

The aforementioned five tips will help you persuade your readers to continue reading whatever article they land on and ultimately trust you enough to follow you on your socials.

Now, practice.

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Next Chapter: Honing Your Persuasive Skills (4 C’s)

Previous Chapter: How to Gain Persuasive Power Over an Audience

Index (with Prologue): The Fundamentals of Persuasive Writing