How to Write Traffic-Pulling Articles for the Web
Writing articles for the web is not the same as writing a school essay.
I have realized something very important. You need to write both for your readers as well as the search engine spiders. This is where many online writers fail miserably.
The truth is there are a lot of good writers with a flair for writing and profound knowledge about the topic they write. But the trouble is, they often think in terms of the human readers and not the search engine spiders. Therefore, they write in such a manner that attracts the reader’s attention, but score poorly in the eyes of the search engines.
Online publishing is different from normal offline literature. You can use bombastic words and write an article with all that creative juices but it will still receive low readership. I have seen many articles of high quality receiving low page views. What a waste!
Article marketing cannot depart from good SEO practices. By that, you need to take note of a couple of factors when writing your articles or web content:
1. Keyword Density, both in the title and the content
2. Latent Semantic Indexing
Article marketing basically is targeted at the search engines. If you cannot rank your article in the top 10 search engine results, you can be sure that your readership will not be outstanding. Conversely, any article that is ranked well gets tons of targeted traffic from the search engines.
So how do you rank them in Top 10?
Treat your article as a web page. In all web pages, the meta-tags and content are optimized for the target keywords. In the same manner, the meta-tags are synonymous with the article title, and the web content with the article body.
Did you realize that the article titles of all articles that are indexed in the search engines are showing up like the meta-title? Likewise, the content is showing up like the meta-description?
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) in layman terms simply means that you have to pay attention to the keywords and topic you use. On top of keeping an appropriate keyword density of the target keyword at about 1% to 2%, you need to associate your content with related keywords. Also, do not go overboard in targeting your main keyword. Never spam your content!
In the past, simply littering the content with the targeted keywords is good enough. Today, rules have changed. For example, if you are writing an article on “article marketing”, instead of just repeating “article marketing” as the only keyword, you probably would think of “online authors”, “EzineArticles”, “article title”, “bum marketing”, “web traffic”, “article submission” and so on.
Likewise, when writing an article on “buying a used Toyota”, you will associate it with “car dealers”, “auto insurance”, “Toyota Prius”, “Toyota Rav4” and so on.
The whole idea is to stay relevant.
So how do you come up with the associated keywords to use in your article content?
1. Use the “~” search feature in Google. Say you want to find a synonym for “car”, simply go to Google ~car and you will see some possible synonyms.
2. Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and search for related keywords and phrases. Remember to check the “Use synonyms” box. This free keyword tool will churn out keywords that Google deems as related to your target keyword.
3. Ask your family and friends. Sometimes, they can tell you some interesting words you may not have thought of.
4. Google the main keyword, and find the top few websites. Take each url and place it in the https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Remember to check the “Website Content” box.
If you will pay attention to the above 2 factors, your article stands to rank well. This strategy will work very well with EzineArticles.
Of course, other than these 2, there are other key factors such as creating unique content, picking long tails and more. I shall talk more about this topic in my next post. We will also discuss later on what makes a “Perfect” article.
Tags: affiliate, affiliate marketing, affiliate marketing guide, affiliate marketing tutorial, article, Article Marketing, article submission, article writing, authors, ecommerce, home business, internet marketing, make money online, online marketing education, online marketing guide, online marketing tutorial, unique content
2 Responses to “How to Write Traffic-Pulling Articles for the Web”
By MONEY FOCUS on Feb 22, 2008 | Reply
am writting my first trial article next week using the tips. I got you on mybloglog and i think i got a friend here. thanks
By Davion on Feb 29, 2008 | Reply
Hi buddy, do post here to share your good news. Many marketers including myself struggle with our first article. It seems to take forever to pluck up the courage, overcome the inertia and start writing the first one. After that, things will be a lot easier!