Article Writing SEO Basics

So you want to start writing articles for your website, company, affiliate marketing, etc.  But you don’t know where to start OR the articles you are writing never show up in search results.  Well, 2011 is a different game for article marketing and SEO, since the Panda update occurred Google has been much more stringent on content distribution and inbound linking.  They are penalizing all duplicate/scraped/stolen content and de-indexing those backlinks which occur, thus passing no link juice onto your site and even possibly harming your site.  Make sure not to spam any main site with thousands and thousands of duped or scraped content article links, this will not help.

What will help, is writing 100% unique content that is relevant to the website your backlinking for.  Submit these articles to only the top sites, don’t waste your time creating Tier 1 backlinks with spammy or low quality article sites.

If your articles are not even being indexed or reaching the top pages of results, how are they going to help you in your SEO efforts? Lets go over some of the basics to ensuring your articles are optimized for search engine spiders. And, that they are written in an optimized manner for receiving the most “weight” in with search engine algorithms.  In today’s SEO climate it comes down to unique and well-written content, the more the better.

Reasons to Write Articles:

1. Backlinks – article directory sites like Ezine have HUGE authority with search engines like Google, and a backlink to your site is worth a lot
2. Marketing for your product/website – gain exposure to possible new customers through the millions that read article sites
3. Affiliate marketing – you can get your links out there and exposed to thousands of readers if you don’t have your own website

General SEO Article Tips:

• Research how competitive the keywords are in the article directory itself, are there 100 “windows registry fix” reviews already?
• Make sure to add your articles to the right categories
• Always add your links in the author section; keep them different then body links (deep links in the body section)

Okay now that we have some of the basics covered lets look at the general outline of how articles should be written.  Hope this gives you ideas on how you can make your articles better, for SEO and for your readers.

The Title:

• Include your keywords
• Combine a common search phrase

Common search phrase extensions for keywords are:

“product x review” “how to” “is it a scam?” “author review” “overview” “top tips” “experiences”

Article Summary:

• Make it unique from the article body
• Include your keywords
• Start off with a “hook”; phrases that entice the reader
• DO NOT make sales pitches here.

Article Body

Lets start with the first 25% of the article:

• Come off sounding personal, build rapport with your reader
• DO NOT make sales pitches here
• Support your title strongly

Middle of the body:

• Personal experience with the product/information
• Place your first link in conjunction with the personal experience/review
• Use the keywords regularly, keep it natural and mixed

Ending of the body:

• Place backlinks here, with anchor text that is relevant to the paragraph/sentence
• Touch back on details and positives
• Make mention of your experience again, and final outlook
• Finish above 550+ words for best weight in SERPs

SEO SUCCESS TIP – the majority of website viewers only SCAN headlines and titles.  Adding a section to your article that is very “scan friendly” can keep a readers interest instead of them just browsing by to the next article.

Browser Friendly Web Writing:

• Lists/Bulletpoints/Numbers
• Bold and Enlarge Fonts
• Use quotes
  
• Keep it brief and point to the positives
• Be honest if it’s about your company and its services/products, if it isn’t and your lying then try and sound authentic at least..
  

Close it out and include one final link IF the article database will allow it. Mix up the links and have this final link point to a different area or web page on your domain.  Get more link juice out of the 2 link mix, instead of duplicates.