Why articles are so important and why you cannot ignore them

Lisa Bevan June 19, 2012 Uncategorized

Search engine optimization is vital for success of any website. SEO experts put a lot of importance on writing SEO articles to get targeted search engine traffic to your website. There are a lot of misconceptions about writing SEO articles and many people do it the wrong way. Some people write nonsensical articles with hundreds of keywords in it and assume that it will rank well on search engines. Search engines are a lot smarter than that and keep changing their algorithms so that people who try to “cheat” the system can be stopped.

Search engines are now de-indexing sites with articles that are stuffed with keywords. Remember that you have to write for your readers and visitors and not just for the search engines. Keep your articles simple and remember to not overload your articles with keywords.

If you can’t hire an SEO writer to write articles for you there’s nothing to worry about. You can easily do it yourself. Here are a few tips on how to write SEO articles for your site:

1. Decide on the topic

The first step in writing an SEO article is to decide on a topic. Remember topic and title of an article is not the same thing, you can decide on the title later so don’t spend too much time on it – it will come to you as you write it.

Topics should not always be about your business but more about “How To” do something or write about current trends. An example of an article I wrote was about how to send gifts to soldiers overseas. I provided do’s and don’ts, most common things soldiers ask for, how long a package takes to get there, etc. I also mentioned my “adopt a soldier” program in my article. Another example was an article on bringing small lunch coolers with you when you go to farmers markets. This way, your purchases can stay cool while you shop. It just so happened that I was selling those types of coolers on my site as well J

2. Write the article

Many people spend hours writing an article because they want it to be perfect. There is nothing wrong with wanting perfection but it’s almost impossible to produce a perfect article the first time you write it. Just jot down your thoughts for a few days and forget about making it perfect – grammar and all. Remember that practice makes perfect and once you determine what works for you, the articles will start to write themselves.

If you absolutely do not want to write your own articles, that is OK too. There are several other options you can use to get your articles written. I’ve used http://www.needanarticle.com in the past when I am too busy to write one myself. For a fee, you submit what you want the article to be about along with your keywords and writers bid to write it for you. You can also place a “job” on http://www.elance.com. This site is the same concept as need-an-article but it’s more structured and you can use the same person over and over again, even outside the system.

3. Keyword positioning

Keyword positioning is an important aspect of creating a SEO article. You should first finish your article before considering where to put your keywords. Avoid putting too many keywords in one SEO article – rule of thumb is 2-3 per article. Make sure that the article makes sense. I know this sounds silly, but I have read articles that did not make any sense because the writer added their keywords just to have the words in the article.

4. Submitting your articles

Once you have your SEO article finished and ready, there are several sites where you can submit them. Some of these sites only like original content so you will have to submit the article there first. These sites have an approval process where they do a search throughout the internet to see if the article is already out there. If they find it, your submission will get rejected.

Approval Process Sites: