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.

3 Easy Tips to Help You Break Into the Hot Niche of SEO Article Writing

by Angeline Plesek


SEO article writing is one of the hottest niches for freelance writers. There are companies that understand the importance of using good SEO content to drive traffic to their websites and they are always looking for decent SEO article writers. Even in the current economic downturn, you can get SEO writing jobs if you market yourself as an SEO content writer.

Companies that look for SEO article writers look for candidates that have writing samples to show, can meet deadlines, and understand the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) and its use of keywords in SEO articles to help drive web traffic.

Yes, it's true-some SEO writing gigs pay poverty-level wages and this can work for you if your primary motivation is to just build a portfolio of samples. Some of these jobs pay from $3 an article up to around $15 an article. But...if you want to write SEO articles to make a living-there are companies that will pay decent wages for well-written content.

Here are 3 tips to help you land a gig as a successful freelance SEO article writer:

1) Study and understand search engine optimization basics. I recommend reading Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. This is a resource guide that was published for webmasters, but it can help copywriters understand the importance of keywords from an overall perspective- from the back-end of a web page, to the front-end SEO content.

2) Market yourself primarily as an SEO article writer. Don't focus on other types of writing. Companies prefer to hire writers that have some basic knowledge of search engine optimization.

3) Write some sample SEO articles for your portfolio. If you don't already have SEO writing samples, they are easy enough to write. Choose three to five topics that interest you and write articles that are anywhere from 300 to 500 words each using relative keywords. Make sure you understand SEO basics and do your keyword research first.

Once you've studied the SEO basics and collect some SEO writing samples, you're ready to get a gig in the hottest freelance writing niche!

Angeline Plesek is an SEO freelance copywriter and the publisher of The Copywriter's Vault, an online information resource for copywriters and Internet marketers. To visit go to: http://www.copywriters-vault.com

7 Techniques to Make Your Article More Useful to Readers

by Deepak Dutta

Whether you are writing articles for article directories or posts for your blog, your goal should be to make them useful to readers. But, most of the articles and blog posts are full of vague generalities and they contain a pile of words and sentences meant for search engine rankings only.

If you make your contents useful to readers and strategically use a few key words to make it search engine friendly, you will not only attract search engine traffic but also develop readers' loyalty who will promote your brand virally.

How do you make your article useful to readers? Use the 7 techniques discussed in this article to make an impact on your readers.

1. Use examples to elaborate your point. Without example the writing becomes an exercise in abstraction and many readers will not have a clue as to what you are trying to convey. You can either start with examples and than generalize message to an abstract concept or you can start with a general statement and elaborate it with examples.

If you are discussing several concepts, start with a simple example and build on the same example to illustrate all of your concepts. Switching to different examples for each of your concept, will leave the readers wondering how all the concepts you have discussed in your article relate to each other.

2. Use analogy, metaphor, and story. Analogies are very instructive and they provide insights to an unknown concept using a known concept. For example, you can explain back links by saying, 'a back link to your website is like a vote for your site. If you have more votes than your competitors, you win. More back links to your site means higher ranking in search engine results.'

Metaphors are also used to compare two different concepts but the words 'like' or 'as' are not used in metaphors. Our every day speech is full of metaphors, e.g. 'raining cats and dogs', 'old flame', etc. Use them to liven up your prose but be cautious. Improper use may sow confusion in the reader's mind.

If you have a personal story, use them to illustrate your point. Stories are very powerful in conveying a message. A Story resonances more in the minds of the readers than an abstract concept.

3. Enhance value by incorporating opinions. Bloggers often link to other articles and write a sentence or two to introduce a topic. While this is a good practice in letting your readers know what others are thinking in the related topics, you can enhance the value of the post by including your opinions and inviting others to post their own thoughts in the comment section.

4. Use Quotes from Authoritative Writings. You may already know about the value of using quotes from your college essay writing class. Quotes from authoritative figures help increase the value of your opinion and thoughts. You can proclaim that you are not the lonely person who has this crazy thought, but lots of respected people do agree with your insights.

5. Use illustrations and charts. You can use this technique in Squidoo lenses, Hubpages and in your own blog posts. This technique may not be possible for general article marketing sites because of the popular article directories don't allow images and videos in the article.

Some concepts are difficult to explain using words only. However, a simple illustration helps readers grasp the concept easily. Readers can also easily remember a chart than a few paragraphs of a blog post.

You don't have to be a graphic artist to create useful illustrations. Use MS PowerPoint or other free chart software to create your charts. Use screen captures when writing a 'how to article' about the use of software.

6. Write Pros and Cons. Most articles discuss only one side of a topic; either the writer is for or against it. Why no use both sides of the coin? Share your opinions about why it is good for your readers and what your readers should be cautious about while using or implementing the concept in your article.

7. Let your article sit for a day or two. Don't rush to submit your articles to all the article directories as soon as you finish writing it. Wait for a day or two and read the articles again to see if you can add or modify some thing to make it more useful to your readers.

Does your article provide any useful information to readers to make their life better? It does not always have to be materialistic gains for your readers. Even if you can share humor or inspiration with your readers using your prose, you have achieved your goal of providing value by your writing.

In the web information is cheap but valuable information is few and far between. If you do your part in making your readers happy, you will be recognized as an expert in your field and money will flow.

Post free classifieds and free ads for all your free online marketing needs using Deepak Dutta's online classified ads tools.

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.