Article Writing and Your Marketing Edge

Article writing can give you a marketing edge for your business. That is, if you know how to properly prepare your article for online readers.

First and foremost, article writing is not the same as writing a term paper in college. Yes, you have to conform to structure, and you do need quality content, keywords and keyword phrases that will help the search engines to properly categorize your article, as well as, help your target market find you.

Writing Your Article - the Business Side

If you are writing articles for your website or for the directories, you need to give your readers the information that your title eludes too. And, with the use of SEO and keywords you can encourage the search engine spiders to index your content for others to find and read.

Whether you are writing articles for article directories or your own website or blog, you need to be vigilant about the keywords you choose within the body of your content.

Keywords

Keywords and keyword phrases are the words that people type in Google search, Yahoo search, Bing or any search engine to find information. I'm sure you have done numerous searches to find something online. It is those same phrases that you will need to place within your copy so that people and search engines can find and categorize your content.

Where Do I Place Keywords?

Now that you know you need keywords in your copy, the next question that's need to be answered is "where do I place my keywords?" Here are some suggestions:

Place major keywords or keyword phrase within your main title.

Place the major keyword or keyword phrase within your first and last paragraph of your copy.

Minor keyword phrases should also be considered. You need to ask yourself what keyword phrase an individual would type into Google search to get to the information about your article.

You will need to keep your keywords or keyword phrases to a specific maximum. If not, Google may think that your article is spam. This maximum is usually referred to as keyword density.

Keyword density is the number of times in which specific keywords or keyword phrases appear in your article. Some say 2-3 specific keywords or keyword phrases per 500 words of content is sufficient. Others, follow the 2% rule. Which is, the specific keyword phrase you choose should total 2% against the total word count in your article.

Your Article Structure

When writing an article for online publishing, you have to learn first how a person reads online. It's really pretty simple. Since people are searching for information on any given topic they will skim first, then read if they find the information will help solve their problem. If it is not helpful, the reader will click away.

So here are some tips to constructing your article, not only for your readers but for the search engines.

USE SUBHEADINGS

Subheadings break up the article into single subtopics. As I said above, people will do a quick scan of the information, before deciding to read. Usually it is a subheading that catches their eye. a subheading also gives you an opportunity to inject a minor keyword relevant to the topic..

Main Headline - Have a compelling headline is to catch the readers interest. If they find your title compelling they may continue to read.

4) Length of Article - The length of your article varies to the information you are wanting to discuss. Some articles directories say that your article should be at least 500 words and no greater than 1000 words.

People do not want to read long, involved copy. They want to get their information and move on. Thus, if you are long-winded you may want to break your articles into" Part I and Part II.

Google And Providing Quality Article Content

Providing quality content is very important. Why? If the quality of the content is lacking, does not show quality research you can assume that few will stay long. And that includes the search engines.

With the last update by Google (Panda), quality was and will be emphasized from now on. If Google search engines and also, individuals from Google who may look over a sight find it lacking, you may find your content pushed back in the search engines. Thus, is it important to consider yes. And, if you don't consider it, you'll be working hard for nothing, because your content will not be seen by human eyes, if Google finds it to be lacking.

Before putting your content out on your web page, it would be wise to take a look at the Google's list for quality content, that was given by Google Fellow, Amit Singhal on the Google Webmaster blog.

Google and Duplicate Content-Forget About It!

For those new to online writing, duplicate content is an important issue for you be be concerned with if you are planning on staying long online.

Does Google penalize your site for duplicate content? Again, with Google's last update in 2011 (Panda), the issue of duplicate content was hit head on. Many sites saw their rankings and traffic drop dramatically, especially "Content Farms". The "Content Farms" are starting to correct the problem, with one being, eliminating duplicate content. They also tried to clean up sites that have:

1. Scraped other sites and put it on their site, and claim it as their own.
2. Developed domain farms- which are multiple pages consisting of duplicate content.
3. Web pages that had little content, but what content there was, emphasized high paying keywords.
4. Looked through pages, to determine if the content offered was useful and organized. (It was rumored that this was done by human checkers).

If you have duplicate content on your site, you may have to decide if the duplicate content is helping or hurting your website. You can choose to do one of the following:

You can signify where the article originally came from.

You can place a (noindex,nofollow) command for the robots so that the search engines do not index the duplicate content on your site. (Thus, leaving the content on your site for your readers to enjoy, but not indexing the text.)

Remove the duplicate content and start over, writing original content of your own.

The Internet is growing up, and with it, comes more rules that need to be followed.

Article Directory Submission-Help

Before submitting your article to an article directory, you need one very important item at the end of your article. It's called a resource box. I'll give you a quick description of what it is, and how you should use it.

Resource Box- Your Calling Card in Article Directories

If you are writing for the article directories, your resource box is prime marketing real estate. Which means, if you want your article to direct traffic to your site, you must know what to put in your resource box..

Your Resource Box - What It Needs At Minimum?

The resource box can include your signature. Which should at least include: 1) name, 2) anchored link to your main page. An anchored link is an url that has descriptive or contextual information about the link's destination that is anchored around "a href" html code. Anchored text holds considerable weight in search engine rankings, because it gives you a backlink on the article directory site to your site.

If a second link is allowed, you can direct the link to the page of which the article is about.

Give a brief blurb about your website, product, business.

Ready To Submit To The Article Directories

With the changes that Google has put into place, you would be wise to choose your directories carefully, as well as, use them sparingly. No longer will spun articles on a 1000 of different article directories get you the results that was once possible. With that being said, this is how you submit your article to an article directory.

How To Submit Your Article

The first time your submit an article to a directory, you will have to do the following:

Set up an account with each of the article directories that you want to place you article in.
Read their rules and follow them-or you may find your article is rejected.
Once you have been accepted, you can place your article in their directory.
You'll see spaces in which you will have to cut and paste your Title, byline, summary (which is usually two or three lines of your article), body of your article, and your resource box.
Preview your article-to make sure that your content does not have any widows, and is properly formatted for viewing
Spellcheck
Submit and wait for acceptance of your article

To conclude, article writing can give you a solid marketing edge for your website or blog. But to draw the search engines, and thus, traffic, your article must be original and offer the reader quality information that is well-researched. If you do keep in mind these two words, "quality" and "original", when writing an article for your blog or website you will be rewarded with traffic not for just a day, but for years to come.

Other Methods Of Marketing Discussed

Blogging Basics - Learn about blogging, the different platforms and the methods used to promote your blog.

Podcasting Basics -- Learn about podcasting, what you need to get started podcasting, and where you can place your podcasts for listening.

Video and Webcast Marketing -Video or Webcasts both can get your product or service or website noticed. Learn what you need to get started, as well as, the benefits

Email Marketing-Learn the basics of email marketing. How to construct an email and set up your email program for success.

Relevant Articles

SEO Basics|Keywords Tips
Meta Tags Tips

Article Marketing in Crisis?