This advice applies to websites, magazines, newsletters and to any individual or small businesses aiming to provide content to an audience in the form or articles, guides or reviews on practically any subject. For example a website with information about products, about fishing, golf or whatever. This advice will be most relevant to people just starting out writing and creating content, and people with new websites and businesses which they intend to grow.

I’ve discovered a lot about writing articles and other content such as reviews over the last year or so, but the most useful lesson I’ve learnt is this:

When deciding on subject matter for an article always start as as narrow and targeted a focus as you can.

Imagine you were creating a website on buying gifts, or home decorations and ornaments. It would be very tempting to come up with titles such as ‘The Ultimate Guide to Gift Sites on the Internet’, or ‘Places to Buy Gifts Online’. It is a common mistake to think that you have to write some kind of ‘ultimate guide’.

Say you want an article of 2-3 pages (typical on the web). The amount of effort doing research to create a balanced general article on, for example, antique and collectable figures will be massive and involve lots of research. Then you have to reduce it down to 2-3 pages anyway and loose a lot of the material you will have obtained.

What you should be doing to begin with is writing a 2-3 page article on as specific a subject as possible. In this case it would be likely to be an article about One type of collectable item or even better one product, e.g. ‘Handmade Porcelain Fairy Figurine Review’ What you will have at the end is one 2-3 page article that will not have taken much research, editing and condensing. You might not think that a very specific subject is enough for a 2-3 page article, the thing is most people underestimate. Once you start writing it fills up very fast.

What’s more the value and usefulness of the very narrow and specific article to visitors of your website is probably more than the general article, it is also more likely to be unique meaning that anyone searching for information on this specific subject on Google or other search engines will likely find you article at the top of the list of search results. You can still add keywords and phrases to the article such as ‘Guide to Gifts, Ornaments and Home Decoration Sites Online’ so that people searching for those terms in Google and other search engines may find it, although it will be low in the search results unless you website is highly ranked in general (this can come later).

Then you carry on doing very specific articles for a while until you have a decent number (20-30 maybe). One product, then another, then another… When you have enough material that you are very familiar with then you can then probably knock out a ‘general guide’ type article and not spend an inordinate amount of time doing it. You will also have a site packed with very targeted and useful information.

So there you go, its tempting but you really must avoid the urge to write very general ‘definitive guide’ type articles that involve significant research and editing. If you are already an expert and can write fluently about a subject without referring to any research material then it may be a different matter, but in most cases specific, targeted, narrow subject matter articles rule. Most people who start websites wanting to be the ‘definitive guide to …’ underestimate the work, research, editing and refining involved, then they get bored and the site never sees the light of day.

• Your first article or other content should be very targeted and specific. If you are a website on Health Supplements, then write an article on one specific supplement, or even better one specific supplement for one specific health benefit - the more specific the better
  
  
• Don't worry about thinking you won't have enough to write about on a very specific subject. Try to break down the article into a number of relevant headings and then write paragraphs around them. You will soon find that an article will flow and you will normally end up with more than enough useful information to fill 2-3 pages
  
  
• It would be best if your article is on a unique subject, or in other words a subject not already covered by hundreds of websites already. This is much easier to achieve with very specific articles and content as opposed to ‘general guides’
  
  
• Unique articles on narrow, targeted subject matter will bring more people to your website from search engines because you will have less competition in search engine results and won't need a highly ranked website. To get a highly ranked general website you need thousands of other sites linking to yours and this type of popularity can take years to achieve. On the other hand, specific unique articles can provide instant search engine success
  
  
• Continue growing your website with narrow subject matter articles and content until you website's popularity grows - check the number of visitors you get and other factors such as your Google Page Rank
  
  
• When your website is deemed as popular by search engines you may begin to receive visitors who are searching for more general information or general guides. This is the point to start turning your site into a more general and definitive resource. You can then take all you individual articles and edit them down into more general guides or product comparisons etc.