I assure you, one does not necessarily infer the other. Just because you’ve written something and you feel you have done a good job, does NOT automatically mean it will capture and hold your reader’s attention.

Besides good content, here are some shortcuts and simple tricks to getting and holding your readers’ attention:

The Headline
1. The first thing you need to do is capture the reader’s attention with a headline that will make the reader do a double take. Check this post for more on writing an attention-grabbing headline.

Quality Content
2. There is an order to writing:

• First comes the introduction paragraph, where you will sum up what your article is promising to deliver.
• Second, the main body of the article is where all the pertinent information is presented.
• Third, your final paragraph should summarize what your article just told your reader.

The Resource Box
3. And finally, at the end of your article, you should write a little about yourself or cite your sources. Whatever you type there, be sure to include a “Call To Action” along with your link to induce your readers to visit your web space.

But There’s More!
If your reader clicks on your article to read it and is immediately greeted with one huge paragraph, they will click away without even reading. I guarantee it.

Use lots of White Space. Break up your article into as many, much smaller chunks–paragraphs of about 2 or 3, maybe 4 sentences. Positively not much more than that.

Also, consider using bullet points in your article. Readers LOVE to skim. If you can give them the information they want in small chucks they can easily read and ingest, they will be very likely to go back and read a little closer.

Sub-Headers Are Golden
Since you’re going to divide your article into smaller paragraphs anyway, use a sub-header (in bold). It provides the scanning reader a little more to scan and ingest.

The bottom line is, today’s readers are in a hurry. Make it as easy for them to scan your article, find bits of information they want, thereby being hooked and following through by reading your article in full, at which point they may be induced to visit your website.

That’s how writing a good article for the purpose of article marketing is accomplished. Take a look at this blog post, for instance. Scan it, as though you just arrived (perhaps that’s exactly what you did when you got here?). Do you see how the use of white space, short, bulleted and sub-headlined paragraphs made this post easier to read? If you scanned, did you pick up enough information to make you want to read a little deeper? That is your goal.