Articles by Larry Chase - Internet Publisher, Speaker, Author and Consultant

Larry Chase - Internet Marketing Consulting

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Top Ten Tips for Writing Top Ten Tips

People love tips. Why? Because in this whirling dervish world in which we live, it's about all anyone can absorb :). Some people like writing Top 7 tips, believing in the magical and mystifying power of seven. Some write 9 or 11 tips to have an odd number in the hope of drawing attention. I like Top Ten Tips because it's alliterative and therefore memorable. It seems to be working because I see other newsletter publishers now employing the practice, replete with a "Bonus Tip."

So, hereunder are my Top Ten Tips for Writing Top Ten Tips. Enjoy.

1. Stay in the spirit of tips by keeping them short. Either use a single statement, or a single statement with a very brief description thereafter. Don't write "War and Peace."

2. Use actions words. It brings an immediacy to the tip that passive verbs don't.

3. Choose a topic that's in hot demand that you know lots about.

4. Re-use the tips. Put them on your website, in your newsletter, in a press release, on your business card. (Use both sides of your biz card for this and keep it real short.) Or use outsized cards.

5. Pull pithy quotes from known and unknown people (and give attribution, of course).

6. Vary the tone. Some serious, some humorous.

7. Suggest books as some of your tips if you like.

8. Write 20 tips, then pare down to the best for your top ten.

9. Make these tips into a PDF file and offer them as an incentive to people for subscribing to your newsletter. (You do have a newsletter, yes?).

10. Have two kinds of people read your tips before releasing them. The first kind are people in your industry. The second kind are people contiguous to your industry. If both appreciate your tips, you've got a winner.

Bonus Tip: Don't forget to give a bonus tip :).