Easy SEO Article Writing Basics For You

by Angela Booth

Are you writing articles for the Web? Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is fundamental -- here are four tips which will help you to learn this skill.

Firstly, let's look at why SEO is important: SEO helps your articles to be found. People looking for information use the Web search engines, which are basically indexing software.

Therefore, you need to include the search terms -- the keywords -- for which people are searching in your articles to ensure that the articles are found.

1. Choose Your Primary Keyword With Care

If you're writing Web articles for a buyer, you'll usually be given a set of keywords to target (include) in your articles.

But what if you're writing articles for yourself? In this case, you need to create your own keyword list. For each article, choose a primary keyword. (Only one.) You'll include this keyword in the article title, as well as in the first paragraph of the article.

You can also choose a secondary keyword if you wish. However, once you've chosen your primary keyword, just focus on writing an excellent article.

2. Write an Excellent Article -- Be Original

You must also remember your article's readers. So your article must not only be original, it should also provide useful information. While keywords are a primary tool of SEO, links are equally important. An article will only be linked to from other sites and blogs if the information is great.

Strive to make your articles "linkworthy". The more links any article collects, the more likely it is to be found by searchers.

3. Avoid Keyword Stuffing

As a Web writer, you'll often work with buyers of your writing who are unfamiliar with the Web, and they may use terms like "keyword density".

Years ago, when the search engines were less powerful than they are now, having keywords appear several times in an article was important. Nowadays, repeating keywords is more likely to get an article labelled as Web spam. Using a keyword too often is known as "keyword stuffing": avoid it.

Use keywords naturally -- once you've placed a keyword in an article title, and again in the first paragraph, it's not necessary to repeat it again, unless you're doing it naturally in the flow of writing.

4. Great Keywords Lead to Great Articles: Keyword Ideas

Because keywords are so essential to ensuring that content is found on the Web, it's vital to use those search terms which are used by Web searchers. Often they're keywords you wouldn't use yourself.

Therefore, when you're writing articles for others, ask to see customers' communications and questions, and also any lists the buyer has of search terms from the site's Web logs.

These sources will often give you great keyword ideas for articles, and the better your keywords, the more effective your articles will be.

Want to make a great income from your writing? Angela Booth's "Sell Your Writing Online NOW" Training Program at http://sellwritingnow.com/Home/training.html gives you all the skills you need to make great money writing for the Web. A subscriber recently said: "Your training has inspired me - I'm on Lesson 14, and I'm making enough money to quit my day job."

For free weekly writing information sent to your Inbox, subscribe to Angela's Fab Freelance Writing Ezine at http://www.freelancewritingezine.com/ and receive "Write And Sell Your Writing: The Power-Write Report" immediately.

Fresh Content Improves Search Engine Optimization

by Matthew Foster

Many search engine optimization companies will sell you a search engine optimization package that addresses many of the major aspects of search engine optimization. These aspects include, but are not limited to, use of file names, alt tags, h1 tags, keyphrase density, meta tag optimization, link analysis and the like. These are all key aspects of a good search optimization.

However, one problem is that the major search engines (especially Google) not only rank pages upon relevant content (which is determined by the factors listed above, and more), but by fresh content as well. What this means to you is that, even after your site has been "optimized to the max", your rankings will increase to a certain level and then not go much higher. To get to the top and stay there, your site should deliver fresh, relevant content on a regular basis. Depending upon the nature of your business, your competition, and targeted keyphrases, the rate at which you should add content to your site can vary from monthly to daily.

The delivery of fresh content to your site, in a form that is readable by search engines (i.e. not through the use of javascript, iframes, or the like) requires a dynamic, database driven content management system.

The most cost effective way to achieve this is through the use of a weblog that sits on your server and resides under your domain name. Updating the weblog with rich articles or commentary, broadcasting this information to the internet, and allowing users to post comments, achieves the following:

Increases the number of inbound links to your website
Increases the frequency at which major search engines will spider or crawl your site
Increases interactivity for the web user
Improves your search engine ranking

For further information, you may contact ArteWorks toll free at 877-336-8266, or visit http://www.arteworks.biz.

Copyright © 2005 Matthew Foster

About Matthew: Matthew Foster is the President and CEO of ArteWorks Business Class, a company that specializes in online marketing, ecommerce and public relations for business. Self-educated in HTML and HTML 4.0 certified by the National Computer Science Academy, Mr. Foster has been actively involved in Internet policy, international banking and ecommerce, website design and search engine optimization since 1995. For further information, please visit www.arteworks.biz.

Writing for Triond

I used to play doubts on online publishing companies that promise a steady flow of revenue stream. For me, they're like fake agents that sell peanuts for a huge price. But then, as I found myself needing a bit more money to augment my meager income, I took the plunge and signed up for Triond. This was 2 years ago. In the beginning, I was the hesitant writer who published articles little by little. I was testing the waters and needed to know if it was all worth it. After a few months of getting just a few cents, I stopped publishing and looked for other means of earning residual income.

Late last year, I came across actual testimonials from freelance writers who have been on Triond for some time. Apparently, it is possible to earn decent money through Triond as long as you know a few tricks (more on this later!). So, I was inspired to write and publish again. My simple goal then was to earn at least $1 each month. And to reach that goal, I promised to deliver at least 3 articles every week. I did that for almost 2 months and got my wish! Now, with 20+ articles published on different websites, I make at least a dollar a month at Triond. Not bad!

If you wish to try earning residual income through writing, I suggest you begin with Triond. It is by far one of the most credible publishing companies that offer writer-friendly services and pay on time.

On Managing Projects and Issuing Invoices

Freelance writing requires commitment, discipline and a lot of hard work. To work more productively, writers can rely on a platform for efficient Freelance Project Management. It helps save time, energy, resources and most of all -- money! This platform is perfect for those who often work on collaborative projects and need input from several team workers.


Last October, I finally set up shop and decided to go full-time on freelance Web writing. I signed up for several revenue stream sites for writers and renewed contracts with a few publishers. I didn't have exact financial goals, but I knew I wanted to earn a decent amount of money from the Web. So I toiled and pecked on my keyboard for hours, writing short how-to articles and publishing them on several sites.

Finally, the money started to roll in sometime November. I realized that freelancers are like dentists - the more you drill (or fill), the more you bill. I have learned to manage my time well and push myself to write more every week.  Hopefully in the future I'll be able to collaborative projects that pay more.  Recently I discovered a system that can help writers with Freelance Project Management.  It's a handy platform that saves freelance writers a lot of time, energy and money. I could've used Mavenlink at the time I was working on a collaborative project for a software company.

Mavenlink is focused on helping businesses, freelancers and clients work together more efficiently on a project.  It makes the project process run smoothly by enabling everyone involved to collaborate using just one platform.  Mavenlink offers a lot of benefits for both clients and freelancers, thus its membership fee is definitely worth it and beneficial in the long run. What more, you also get 1% savings per transaction if you are subscribed to Mavenlink. Through this PayPal Discount, you can save $100 for every $10,000 billed.