Answer This Helpful Question Before You Publish Your Next Article

And win your readers’ trust, fast

The crackling applause from readers kept reverberating. Then random digits took turns to ring the notifications bell in the top right corner of my Medium homepage.

Part of me wondered if a fortune teller was dropping clues to the numbers that could help make me a few million through the lottery.

The surprise party entered the next phase when, with different voices and to various tunes, readers began to sing my praises.

Then the unexpected happened.

A reader far more accomplished than me shot me a note of thanks. “Thanks for sharing these thoughts with the world. I needed to read this. I feel like I have been gaining next to no traction on my writing of late,” she wrote.

Unknown to me, I had administered the medication the writing doctor ordered, and in the right dose, through my article.

Author Michael Maslansky would be pleased to learn I spoke the language of trust in a random article. I was plainspoken, I was positive.

Trust is the foundation on which people build multiple stories of thriving businesses. If this foundation is weak, currents of the market will force these structures to cave in. And great will be the ruin.

Therein, dear reader, lies the one question you should always answer before you hit publish.

Do my words inspire trust?

Here are three simple ways you can build trust with your articles.

Find a painting brush

I suppose because we live in the age where numbers rule the roost, some writers cook their words to satisfy thousands, possibly millions of readers eager to champ at the next serving.

But a lot of writers forget the one person who will taste the creative dish and nod his approval to the pack of hungry readers.

Said Darius Foroux, “When you try to make something for everyone, it usually serves no one. So I think of one person.”

I remember when I tried to write something for everyone, but everyone was interested in something else. I was displeased with the scant number of views my pieces were raking in, according to Google Analytics.

My articles were too quiet in the loud internet space. But then I figured there was at least one writer like me who was also worried over how poorly her writing performed.

If I could conjure some answers, I might lend a helping hand to my worried colleague, who was also a toddler at writing.

Alas, I shoehorned my feet into her cowboy boots and wrote for her.

Two weeks later, she left a thank you note on the article I wrote with my feet in her shoes and her problem in my mind. She thanked me for digging up those gems and exporting them to her over the internet.

So before you put your pencil to your pad, before your lay a finger on your keyboard, before you pour your heart into your article, whip out your painting brush and draw the best portrait of the recipient of your heartfelt letter.

A reader who feels you wrote with her in mind will give you a place in her heart.

Build your empire with small materials

Seeing several pipes discharging tonnes of concrete into thousands of piles drilled into the artificial island on the Dubai Peninsular warmed my heart.

The breathtaking edifice of the Burj al Arab — made of 9,000 tonnes of steel and some glass - stands on a foundation made of the smaller sized materials of cement, sand, stones. Okay, and some steel bars too.

A path well-trodden, a drum well-beaten, and a note well-sung, this, but you can stamp an indelible mark on the mind of your reader with smaller words as much as you can with bigger ones.

As you know by now, bigger isn’t always better.

As a certified real estate surveyor, I usually attack lease agreements first thing in the morning. Reading the big words sometimes saps my energy, and I have to grab a bite when I finish. I loathe reading the information that comes with the packaging of some medications.

How about you, how do you treat end user licensing agreements you have to read and accept before you install apps on your phone or software on your computer?

How much the reader trusts you is the extent to which she understands your words.

I suppose most of the five and six-syllabled words we would all love to spritz into our writing have their place, only most of us can’t find it.

Strive to drag your readers from neutral to positive

Some writing scribes preach your article ought to crush your readers into iron filings of insecurity before you wave a magnet over them. The roots of that theory sink deep into the marketing soils.

If you have your file in hand to do that, ensure your magnetic field is strong enough to pick them back up.

You do not want to leave your readers under a rubble of negativity, for people trust those they associate the most positivity with.

What are some of the best articles you’ve ever read? What was the overarching tone?

It doesn’t take much effort for the reader to find an article that undermines her ability to make it in life, so don’t rub salt in their wounds.

Lift the spirits of your readers by putting a positive spin on your pieces, and watch them flock to your work like ants to sugar.

Final thoughts

Your dear reader already faces the thankless task of sifting through all the noise and “expert” opinions out there. She’s leery of some of the writers, and she’s scared of doing what some of them suggest.

You want your work to be one of the few she trusts when she reads it. Even better, you want her to trust you, the writer.

To build that trust, you have to personalize the message for her. Encode the text in a language the reader can decode even when she’s tired. Finally, feed your reader on steady doses of positivity. Or at least don’t force her to drink from the well of negativity.

You want every drop of sweat and every pound of strength you invested in your work to earn your reader’s trust.