In this space, you can write articles on topics that interest you, and equally importantly, that your readers will find useful.

I always start with a hypothetical question, for instance: "Why should I become a vegetarian?"

Your job now, if you're running vegetarian-tips site is to answer this question. You'll be surprised how much you know.

Write in short-ish paragraphs and keep the whole thing under 500 words. Here is a step by step guide to writing articles:

1. Click "Articles" on the top menu.

2. Click "Submit Article" to add a new one, or the article headline and "Edit" if you want to change an old one.

3. In the Keywords section, just add 3-5 words that link to what the article is about. For instance, if it's about hiking in France, then: travel, france, hiking, alps, tourism - might be good keywords. Remember these keywords link to what people are searching, so you want to help them to find your site when they type in any of these phrases.

4. In the editing section, fill in your text.

a. Be sure the title is short and contains a clear benefit of reading the article.
b. Write the bulk of the article as clear and compelling as possible. I like to break things down into lists, 1-3 or 1-10 tips. That makes the article much easier to read and digest. It's also easier to write.

More Editing Options:

Log Message: Can generally be ignored, unless you have more than three people building your site. In that case, just add your name here so people will know who made these changes.

File Attachments: These can be very simple to do (just browse for any file on your computer) and if you have something of value you want to share, this is the way to do it. Remember, you can upload books, sound files, photographs, and more.

Comment Setting: Here is where you have to decide just how democratic your site will be. Do you want anyone to be able to comment on your articles, good and bad? Well, then select "Read/Write." If, on the other hand, you want no graffiti mussing your articles you can toggle "Disabled."

In general, it's better to allow unedited comments on your site (you can always delete the unfair or obscene ones), but it will build loyalty among those who truly adore you and what you provide. (And who knows, you might learn something from the negative comments.)

Authoring: I'd leave this as it is, it just records who made the changes.

Publishing: There are three options -

Published: If this is NOT checked, no one will ever be able to see the content. So generally, unless you're in a rough draft, you should turn this on.
Promoted to front page: This is the way that you fill your Home page with content. Anything where "Promote to Front Page" is clicked, that content will automatically appear there. (You can turn it off, of course.)
Sticky at top of lists: If you'll have, for instance, many articles but you want one to always be at the top of the bunch, you can select "Sticky at top of list."

Then hit "Submit" and you're live!

PS: The above information is contained in the Cookbook, so you can delete this article once you've read it.