Jacob Jans.Com

This guide is for people hired to write articles for MysteryShopOnline.com. It provides guidelines for style & content.

Always keep in mind the primary mission of MysteryShopOnline.com

• MysteryShopOnline.com’s mission is to teach people how to make as much money as possible with mystery shopping.

This means all content you create should be centered around making it easier for people to make money. You should always focus on communicating the best ways to be a more profitable mystery shopper.

Before You Begin Writing

The first thing you need to think about is the audience your are writing to. Most mystery shoppers are women. Many of them are stay-at-home parents, or parents who need to earn additional income. Many of them are also grandparents. The vast majority of MysteryShopOnline.com readers are at least 24 years old.

Before you begin writing imagine a specific person you are writing to. For example, Sara who has 2 small children, and needs extra money to support them, but doesn’t have time to get a job. Keep this imaginary person in mind at all times when writing.

Finally, you can think about the topic. The best topics are specific. For example, instead of a general article about how to stay organized, you could write about how to use spreadsheets to keep track of assignments. When choosing a topic, think about how it will make it easier for a mystery shopper to make more money.

Once you have a topic, write down all of the ways your information will benefit the reader. For example, keeping proper track of tax deductions benefits the reader by saving them money, increasing their mystery shopping profit, and making life easier come tax time. But you could go even further, by saying connecting it to the readers personal life. For example, easier taxes means avoiding a lot of stress. Easier taxes also means more time to spend with your kids! To learn more about benefits, read this: http://www.copyblogger.com/now-featuring-benefits/

Clearly articulating benefits is extremely important to keeping the reader engaged.

Research

You might find you need additional information before you begin writing. Here are some good resources for learning about mystery shopping:

• http://forum.volition.com/
• http://www.mysteryshopforum.com/
• http://www.mysteryshop.org/

How to Structure Your Article

Begin with the title. Titles should clearly communicate the subject of the article. They should also communicate a benefit of the subject. For example: “How to Save Money with Tax-Deductions.”

The introduction should include the topic of the article, and even more importantly, the benefits of learning about the topic.

For the meat of the article, you have a lot more freedom.

Here are a few style guidelines to keep in mind:

• Try to keep your paragraphs relatively short.
• Use bullet points when appropriate.
• Use subheadings.

End the article with a paragraph similar to the introduction, making sure to emphasize the benefits of what you have told them.

Editing

There are two kinds of editing:

1. Proof-reading for typos & grammatical erros
2. Improving the content

Don’t worry about proof reading until the very end.

When you finish your first draft of the article, look for areas that can be expanded, made more clear, or rearranged. The best articles usually go through at least 2 rounds of this kind improvement.

Submitting the Article

Once you have finished the article, email it to jacob@mysteryshoponline.com.  Include the words ‘article submission’ in the subject.