In order to sell your article must do three things:

1. Give value

2. Inform

3. Create a warm feeling in your readers.

If your article doesn't achieve these three things you are in for a long haul.

1. Give Value.

Giving value is the first priority any piece should serve. In other words, if you sit down to write an article about a subject with the idea the article is going to sell something for you, you have lost the game before you even got off the bench.

Value, no, great value is critical for your success and without it any hopes people will click through to your website or whatever you're recommending in your article will be destroyed.

2. Useable and Helpful information.

If your article fails to serve the readers interest and offer them useable information you have yet again dropped the ball.

You are reading this particular article for one reason and one reason only. You want to learn how to write articles that sell.

If this article fails to share with you valuable information you can use I have failed to do my job at serving you with what you want.

Not good, for you or me.

Which results in me learning a hard lesson: write for you and to you and not for me and at you.

3. Create a warm feeling in your reader.

Finally, your article must create a warm feeling within your readers. In order to do this you have to write to build a unique perspective with your reader. One thing that makes every writer different is their style, their own personality and flair within the piece they are writing.

Without this unique "feeling" you provide for your readers your article won't be as strong as it could have been.

The bottom line is this: if you're readers do not like you they will not buy from you, click a link within your article, or do what you intended for them to do when you plugged the sales component into your article.

They will simply click the back button on their browser and return to searching for value driven, informative information that serves them.

I haven't written many great articles, I have written a lot of good ones and I have written so many horrible ones I don't dare think back on them for fear of getting depressed.

Writing to takes practice, writing to sell takes even more practice, along with writing a lot of crappy work in order to pluck the few great pieces you write from their ashes.

Doing so not only teaches you how to write but teaches you how to write to sell.

About the author: Jason Mann is a profitability consultant and freelance writer who helps internet business owners improve their profit margins through creative marketing strategies. For more articles and information visit http://www.majorprofitmargins.info