The Dos and Don’ts of SEO Article Writing

This guest blog contributed by Lacey Cook

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a well-established marketing strategy that is becoming more popular by the minute. The objective is to raise your website’s ranking in search engine results. In order to do so, you will need to get more links online, and one very good way to accomplish this is to write articles and submit them for publishing on other sites.

When you’re writing articles for SEO, it can be easy to fall into some bad habits. While it is important to produce articles quickly, you should not sacrifice the quality of your work in a quest to produce a great quantity of material. In order to achieve the best articles possible, it is good to know some of the things bloggers and other website owners are looking for and what will help you get the most out of your article. These are just a few of the many things you should and shouldn’t do when writing and article for SEO.

Dos

  1. Start creating every article with an open mind and an open writing style. The article you are assigned may be on any topic and the website may want the article to portray a different tone or writing style than you are used to. You are writing for them, and you should be willing to do whatever it takes to get your article published.
  2. Another way to get more Internet users to see your website is to include keywords in your article that will allow your site to be visible when a user types those keywords into a search engine. You don’t want to simply guess what your typical customer is going to search for, because you will probably be wrong. Instead, do some market research to see which keywords to use. You can start with the Google Keyword Tool.
  3. Write an article that is relevant, informative, and entertaining. If you follow this rule, your keywords should generally come up. Focus primarily on the content of your writing and then secondly on the use of your keywords.
  4. Take notes of different writing styles in different blogs, newsletters, press releases, and other material you find.
  5. Use a catchy title. More readers will be attracted to the article with a great title that catches their eye. Most readers will also select the title in a search engine that matches their search terms, so try to use some of the keywords you’ve found.

Don’ts

  1. Do not overuse your keywords. While they are very important to attract relevant visitors, too many keywords in an article can make it seem very low quality. It also shows the publisher that it was probably written for SEO, and they will be less likely to publish the article. The best SEO articles don’t sound as if they are trying to pick up traffic with keywords. Your article should look just like any other well written article.
  2. Do not promote your site in the article, and definitely don’t promote articles used in link building.
  3. Organic links will help improve your search ranking. Be willing to share links, but only for sites that are actually valuable to you and relate to your site material. You want to be proud of everything you put on your website, so don’t allow anything less than the best to be shown.
  4. Don’t forget that the quality of your content is the most important. Using keywords to spam your article will only show that your writing is poor. Do your best, and you will be able to show the publisher and your readers that you are a reliable author.

Lacey Cook is an author who writes guest posts on the topics of business, marketing, credit cards, and personal finance. Additionally, she works for a website that focuses on educating readers about getting their first credit card.

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Copyright 2011 Eric Bank, Freelance Writer

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