How to Write an Article: From One Question to a Finished Piece, Step by Step

Decide what the article says before you write a word of it

Most stalled articles have a topic and no point. "Water heaters" is a topic. "A tank water heater past twelve years old is usually cheaper to replace than to repair twice" is a point. You can write toward a point. A topic just sits there and waits for you to have an idea about it.

So the first step takes five minutes and happens on paper. Name the reader, the question they would type or ask out loud, and the answer you would give them across a counter. If the answer will not fit in one sentence, you have two articles, or you have not finished thinking. This sentence also goes at the top of any content brief you hand to a writer, because it is the one thing a writer outside your business cannot guess.

The questions come from the phone, the estimate visit and the emails you have answered more than twice. The blog ideas for small businesses list helps when the well runs dry, and keyword research shows how often each is searched. The system around a single article lives in the content marketing section.

Research from three piles, and keep a log of where every fact came from

Research is not rearranging the first five search results; that makes a sixth copy. Good business articles draw from three piles, in this order, because no competitor can copy the first two.

As you go, keep a source log: the claim on the left, where you found it on the right. It feels fussy for a day. Then it saves the article, because during editing you can check every number in minutes instead of hunting for a tab you closed last Tuesday. Anything you cannot trace gets cut, not softened into a vaguer claim.

Five questions for the interview

1. 1.What do customers usually get wrong about this before they call?
2. 2.What is the most common cause, and what is the one that surprises people?
3. 3.What does it cost here, at the low end and the high end, and why?
4. 4.When can someone safely handle this alone, and when should they stop?
5. 5.What would you do in your own house?

Record it, with permission, and transcribe it. The best sentences in the finished piece are often ones the technician said while waving a hand.

Outline in sentences, not in topics

A topic outline looks organized and hides the hard part. "Causes. Costs. Prevention." says what each section is about, not what it says. At the costs section you are back at the blank page, just a smaller one.

A sentence outline makes each line a statement you could defend. Then you put the statements in the order the reader's questions arrive: what is happening, does it apply to me, what do I do now, what will it cost, what can go wrong, who do I call. The outline below is for a hypothetical HVAC company's article about an air conditioner that keeps freezing.

Read the right-hand column aloud and you have heard the article. If a section has no sentence worth writing, it does not belong in the piece. If two sections say the same thing, merge them now, while it costs nothing.

Four ways to open an article, and the one opening to retire

The first paragraph has to tell a stranger that this page will answer their question, and that it is worth the next minute. Newsrooms settled on a handful of dependable openings long ago, and the useful ones come down to four.

The second paragraph then says why this matters to the reader, in three or four sentences. Then get on with it.

The opening to retire clears its throat: a dictionary definition, a history of the industry, "In this article we will look at." On a phone, an opening that delays the answer invites the back button. An answer stated plainly near the top is also the passage an AI engine is most likely to lift, which our page on content AI can quote explains.

Nobody has ever finished an article because the first paragraph defined the word in the headline.

Draft fast, in order, and fix nothing yet

With a sentence outline and a source log, the draft is the shortest step. Write it in one sitting if you can, top to bottom, one outline sentence at a time, each one expanded into a paragraph or two. Do not stop to polish. When you hit a gap, a missing price or a name you need to check, type TK, the old newsroom mark for "to come," and keep going. You can search for every TK later.

A few rules keep the draft readable without slowing it down. The federal government's plain language guidance on digital.gov recommends limiting each paragraph to one topic and opening it with a topic sentence, and suggests paragraphs of no more than 150 words in three to eight sentences. Its writing guide prefers active voice, because it makes clear who should do what, and present tense.

• One idea per sentence. When a sentence needs a second comma and a "which," it usually wants to be two sentences.
• The example right after the claim. "Filters clog faster in houses with pets" lands harder with "we change them monthly in homes with two dogs" right behind it.
• Your customers' words, not your trade's. They say "the AC is freezing up," not "evaporator coil icing." Use the trade term once, in parentheses, if it helps them talk to a technician.
• An ending that points somewhere. Close with the next step, not a summary of what the reader just read.

If more than one person writes for the company, keep a short note on how it sounds, so every piece reads like the same business. The brand voice guide shows how.

Edit in separate passes, because nobody catches everything in one read

Editing works best in passes, each hunting one kind of problem, because the eye checking a price cannot also judge whether section four belongs before section three. Let the draft sit overnight if you can. You will read what you wrote instead of what you meant.

1. 1

   The structure pass

   Read only the headings and the first sentence of each section. Do they tell the story in order? Move, merge or delete sections now, before you spend effort on their sentences.

2. 2

   The fact pass

   Go through the source log line by line. Every number, rule, price and name gets checked against its source. Search the draft for TK and fill each one or cut the sentence.

3. 3

   The cutting pass

   Delete every sentence a reader would not miss: announcements of what is coming, summaries of what just happened, qualifiers like "very" and "really." Expect a first draft to shrink noticeably on this pass. That is the pass working.

4. 4

   The line pass

   Swap passive constructions for active ones and buried verbs for direct ones. The plain language guide's own example: "We analyze data" instead of "We conduct an analysis of the data."

5. 5

   The read-aloud pass

   Read the whole piece out loud. Anywhere you stumble, a reader will too. Anything you would be embarrassed to say to a customer's face comes out.

6. 6

   The stranger pass

   Hand it to someone who does not know the subject. Ask what they would do after reading it. If they cannot say, the article has not told them.

Google publishes its own version of a final check in its guide to helpful, people-first content. Among its questions: whether the content has spelling or stylistic issues, whether it looks sloppy or hastily produced, and whether it was written or reviewed by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrably knows the topic well. The last one is why the fact pass belongs to someone in your business. If a tool wrote the first draft, our guide to AI writing adds the checks that machine drafts need.

Write the headline last, from the sentence you started with

A headline written first describes the article you hoped to write. A headline written last describes the one you did. By now you have the one-sentence answer from step one, and the best headline is usually a short version of it, or the question it answers, in the reader's words.

Google's helpful content guide asks whether the main heading gives a descriptive, helpful summary of the content and whether it avoids exaggerating or being shocking. The right column fails one test or the other. Pick title case or sentence case and keep it; Google's developer documentation style guide uses sentence case, and either works if it is consistent.

The headline on the page and the title shown in search results do not have to match word for word, though they should promise the same thing. How Google chooses and sometimes rewrites the title link is covered in title tags, and the persuasion side of headlines, ten drafts for every one you keep, is in the copywriting guide.

Publishing is a step, and so is the week after

Before it goes live, the article needs a few things that are not writing: a real author name where readers would expect one, which Google's guidance strongly encourages; a visible date; a link to the service the piece supports; and one clear next step. The checklist in how to start a blog covers each. Whether the piece will rank is a separate craft, search intent and depth, which our SEO content guide handles, and the E-E-A-T guide explains why the author line carries weight.

Then send it somewhere. The email list, the staff who answer that question, the customer who asked it in the first place. Our content distribution guide turns one article into a month of appearances, and the email newsletter guide shows how to put it in front of past customers. Six months later, check whether it still earns clicks; content relaunch covers what to do when it does not.

This procedure costs a capable owner a few evenings per article. If the evenings do not exist, a freelance writer with a good brief can take the drafting, or DataCram's content marketing service can take all of it: we interview you for the facts only your business has, then write, fact-check, publish and report on the calls each piece brings in. The free website audit shows how your current pages hold up on speed, SEO, mobile, security and content.