One of the keys to creating a great piece of writing is to start by creating a great outline. And yet many writers completely overlook this step, particularly when they’re writing short pieces like articles and reports.

However, creating a good outline ensures you focus your writing on the most important topics, which makes the piece more enjoyable for your readers.

So here’s how to create this outline…

Step #1: Pick Your Topic

You’re already working in a specific niche, so now you just need to pick a topic for your article, report, ebook or other content piece. Obviously, you want to choose a popular topic.

You can do this by:

• Looking at paid products (on sites like Clickbank.com and Amazon.com) to see what topics are selling well.
• Check out niche forums and blogs to see which topics generate a lot of interest and discussion.

Step #2: Choose Your Primary Goal for This Piece

Once you’ve picked your topic, then you need to decide what your goal is for this piece. You can also decide the approximate length.

Examples:

• Is it an article for your blog? If so, what is the goal of this article? E.G., is it to get people to join your list?
• Is it a presell report? If so, then the goal is to “warm up” prospects and get them to click your links.
• Is it a paid ebook? If so, then the goal is to give your readers in-depth instructions and encourage them to take action.

Knowing your primary goal will help you keep your writing focused on the goal.

Step #3: Do Your Preliminary Research

If you’re not an expert in the niche, then you’ll need to do some initial research in order to determine what steps, tips or topics you need to cover in your piece.

Note: A simple keyword search (such as “how to teach a dog to sit”) will uncover hundreds of similar content pieces, so you can look at these pieces to determine which topics you need to include in your article, report or ebook, too.

Tip: If you’re writing a book, go to Amazon.com and search for similar books. That’s because Amazon let’s you take a peek inside the book to see the table of contents. These tables of contents will give you plenty of ideas about what topics to include in your book.

Step #4: Create Your Outline

Once you have a good idea about what topics to include in your content piece, now it’s time to create your outline.

If you need guidance as to how to order your topics, just go back to your research to see how other popular content pieces ordered their topics. Otherwise, here are a few general guidelines:

• Logical order. If you’re describing a step-by-step process, then obviously your outline will list the steps in order.
• Beginner to advanced material. Self-explanatory – put the easier material at the beginning of your piece.
• Fastest results to slower results. If you’re listing different tips or strategies, you might order them from those that get quick results to those that take longer to implement.
• Mix of tips. Here you might put one or two of your BEST tips in the beginning and then put another one or two of your best tips at the end.Next, you should assign an approximate word count to each section, which will help you stay focused on the most important parts of your content piece.

Finally, don’t forget to look at your outline to ensure that it helps you meet the goal of your content piece (such as preselling a product or teaching your readers a process). If your outline looks good, then you can start writing!

If you’re already an expert in your niche, then you can probably sit down and write an article, report or ebook without having to consult any sources. But if you’re like most people, then you need to do some research before you start writing. And if you want to end with an accurate, useful article, then you better be sure you do your research the right way.

Here’s how…

Create Multiple Searches

You’ll get a wider variety of sources and information if you complete several Google searches. Let’s suppose you’re looking up information about housetraining. You’d want to do several searches, such as:

Housetraining a dog
Housetraining a puppy
Housetraining
Kennel training a puppy
Potty training a puppy
Housebreaking a dog
Housebreaking a puppy

Use Credible Sources

Anyone can put just about anything online. And that’s why it’s so important for you to get your information from credible sources only. This includes:

Well-known experts. For example, you can trust people like Jimmy D. Brown in the online marketing niches, Cesar Milan for dog training and Tiger Woods for golf tips.

Established authority sites. These are sites like WebMD.com, which are known for providing high-quality information.

News sites. Stick to major news sites, like major newspapers or other media sites (e.g., CNN.com).

Academic and research sites. These include official university websites as well as research papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Verify With Multiple Sources

Even if you are going through credible sources for your research, be sure to use multiple sources.

In other words, verify all facts with at least two or three credible sources.

Make Notes

As you’re doing your research, take notes about important points. If you think of your own examples, stories or tips, write these down too.

That’s because you’re going to want to close all your sources before you start writing to avoid accidentally plagiarizing anyone else’s material. Thus you’ll refer to your notes rather than referring directly to a source.

Tip: In order to create truly original content, it’s best if you find your own fresh angle for the topic. For example, many copywriting books and articles refer to the AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) formula. And so this is what you’ll find when you start researching how to write a sales letter.

Want to be unique? You could present a fresh angle on copywriting by talking about how writing a sales letter is a lot like writing a love letter.

Credit Your Sources

If you’re using multiple sources to do your research on something common (like the steps for housetraining a puppy or the steps to transplant a tomato seedling), then generally you’ll find that the procedure is the same across these sources.

Thus you just need to write the procedure in your own words and add in your own unique tips, examples and stories.

However, if you’re gathering research on something specific – like the results of a university study – then you need to cite your source.

In this case, you’d track down the original scholarly journal and cite this journal at the end of your article, report or ebook.

In summary…

You need to make sure your information is accurate by researching a variety of credible sources. However, you also need to make sure that any content piece you create is completely original.

So while you can certainly use a content piece for inspiration and research, you CANNOT copy or merely “rewrite” other people’s work. Instead, you need to write all your content in your own words, preferably adding in your own experiences whenever possible.