Choosing Article Marketing Topics For Increased SEO Benefit
Posted on 31. Dec, 2008 by Christine OKelly in SEO Copywriting
When you write articles for marketing purposes, it may be tempting to stuff them with keywords in hopes of getting them noticed faster and ranked higher. But with article marketing, a very high keyword density is actually detrimental: people reading articles are looking for useful information, not your promotional spiel. The companies that publish articles know that, and screen content accordingly. Articles are rejected every day for being too self-promotional.
Many clients want to know why article marketing is helpful if it doesn’t promote their particular products or services. It may seem counterproductive to create articles that don’t specifically reference your company, but in fact, article marketing promotes your company by being highly useful to readers.
Benefits of Objective Articles
Even when an article doesn’t directly reference your company in the text, it will discuss some aspect of your products or services. Efficient article marketing may mean a “how-to” or “benefits of” article that leads the reader to desire what you provide. Regardless of the topic or content, all articles directly benefit you by:
- Providing backlinks to your site in the “about the author” portion of the article
- Establishing you – and your company – as an authority on the topic
- “Selling” the reader on need for the product. Once a need for your product has been established, your link is right in the footer and able to supply.
Using Keywords to Inspire Interesting Topics
One of the most commonly made mistakes in article marketing is choosing a bad topic. Many writers have difficulty looking beyond the marketing aspect of the article to the objectivity, and end up with articles that are too self-promoting or simply not interesting. When writing an article, creating interesting content is absolutely vital.
When search engines consider articles, they always look for how useful a particular article is to a user. The most self-promotional articles are usually the worst ranked: search engines know the difference, and act accordingly. In this age where search engines are smarter, the old rules of marketing no longer apply.
The goal of your article should always be to provide useful information to searchers – don’t worry about promoting your company in the article. Leave that for the author bio.
Some good article topics include:
- How To…
- 3 Ways To…
- Comparisons of 3 or more different products/solutions
- 3 Things to Consider Before…
- 4 Reasons Why…
- A Unique Solution for…
- A Guide to…
- X vs. Y: Which is Right for You?
Even if a topic isn’t obviously promotional, it should always be slanted toward the product your company offers. If it’s comparing two items, simply have the article conclude that your company’s item is superior. Build up the need for a given product or service through your topic and body text, and you will effectively increase demand and traffic on your company’s website without mentioning them once in the text.
Just the other day, I read a very effective article that focused on how to create an effective display at a trade show. As I was reading through, the article made me realize that I didn’t have the necessary skills or experience to make a professional looking trade display. So I promptly followed the link in the author bio at the bottom of the article and looked at a website that could create one for me.
For this reason, how to articles are particularly useful for service industries, or companies offering products that are hard to make or inefficient to produce anywhere else. Many people think they can do something themselves fairly easily. But if they discover how truly complex a process is, or how potentially substandard their results could be, they may very well decide to hire a professional. And to reach a professional, they have to look no further than the bio of that very same article for a convenient link.
The Importance of the Title in Article Marketing
Once you have an interesting and informative topic, you need a title to match. Make sure that your title contains the keywords for your article: these titles often become part of the URL or title tags for the article’s webpage, making them a powerful indicator to search engines. Many search engine web crawlers use title tags to get an idea of the topic of the article. Search engine spiders need to recognize that your article has relevant, interesting content for their searchers. More importantly, your headline should appeal to humans. Brian Clark has a fantastic post on Writing Killer Headlines that is definitely worth reading.
The title tag is also commonly used as the linked title of the page itself. It needs to be compelling, because it is often this title that searchers use to decide whether or not to visit a page. If you write an interesting and relevant title, searchers are much more likely to click through and read your text.
When you unite a compelling title with interesting and objective text, you will produce an article that is accepted by distribution sites and attractive to readers. With the right touches, article marketing is a crucial component of any SEO strategy.
21 Responses to “Choosing Article Marketing Topics For Increased SEO Benefit”
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Donna
04. Jan, 2009
It’s easy to get caught up in the text itself with consideration for the title saved for last (in hopes there’ll be some brilliant title that comes to mind as you’re writing the text). Great reminder of its importance.
John Friedlund
12. Jan, 2009
I’ve been tring to write some articles on my own for my business but always seem to get hung up on a topic. Your tips on how to make an intersting article were a great help. I didn’t realize how important it was to put the keywords in the title, I’ll be sure to do that in the future. Thanks so much for your tips!
Dany
12. Mar, 2009
Great post, thanks for the info
Kevin Sandridge
07. Apr, 2009
Have to echo John on this one. It’s so easy to get “writer’s block” on posts. Sometimes, simple is best – leaving the “promo” stuff for the resource box in our articles. I agree with you on that point completely!
Also love that you reference the headline tips article over at CopyBlogger! I have that little gem taped near my computer at all times!
Article Submit HQ
22. May, 2009
Wow, nice article,
Yeah a Title is like a story headline… it needs to be both good for SEO and good for Google.
-Quang
Work at home Angle
07. Jun, 2009
It is hard to find true knowledge on the web now days.
But your blog is obviously an exception to the rule.
Well done and nice work!
Work at home angle
Cheers
Article Submitter Software
21. Jun, 2009
Article marketing has been used by professionals for nearly as long as mass print has been available. In paper-print form (as opposed to online forms), article marketing is utilized commonly by business owners as a means of obtaining free press space. A local business provides useful content to the newspaper free of charge, and in return the newspaper prints the business’ contact information with the article. Because newspapers and other traditional media are expected to present content on limited budgets, this arrangement is generally advantageous for all parties involved.
Article Marketing Tip
13. Jul, 2009
I think you are correct in your first paragraph…as far as “stuffing” keywords into articles.
I will say that it is very easy to still get good SEO ranking content into your article without it sounding goofy to the reader.
I think most people are a little too cautious of this…
Greg's Seo Copywriting Services
12. Aug, 2009
Thanks for some of these mistakes. I’ll be sure not to commit them in the future. I found that having my main keyword as close to the beginning of the title as possible to be very helpful.
Jane
13. Sep, 2009
Great tips!
I accidently noticed on my blog that the “A Guide to” is very powerfull.
I’ll try the other ideas as well.
John Timmers
13. Sep, 2009
Just ran across this post… On of the better up-and-coming article directories that I like it PopularArticles.com. YMMV.
SEO tools review
07. Feb, 2010
Thanks for all these great tips
Milford MA Real Estate
09. Mar, 2010
I would agree that all the promotional material looks silly. People want information that grabs them and makes them want to come back for more. There is a place for promotional efforts but it should not be the focus of any site.
magic article rewriter reviews
13. Mar, 2010
The main aim of article marketing is to increse traffic to your site and produce incredible. Buildiing backlinks will give you higher rankings on search engine result pages and consenquently more visitors. To achieve this, you unquestionably need to use automation softwares. Doing article marketing without some automation tools can be really overwhelming and time consuming.
Maddison Richards
23. Jun, 2010
What are the best SEO Tools on the market today? i have some off page optimization checker in hand..:*
Christine
24. Jun, 2010
Hi Maddison! It depends on what you are trying to accomplish. What is your goal?
Article Marketing Software
14. Jul, 2010
This is an amazing post, I knew a lot about writing articles until I read your post and realized there were several things I was not aware of.
I like and agree with the fact that writing articles should not be over promotional and the best articles are the ones that the readers can benefit from.
I think that is why article spinners will never take the place of human writers, some things are best left to the human hands.
dofollow backlinks
01. Sep, 2010
Wow, this is real inspiration.
So many times I have come up to these kinds of questions.
This was a great overview!
Thank you for your expertise.Especially the keyword part!
Italian Villa rentals
09. May, 2011
Thanks for the advice, many people often forget the importance of a keyword dense title, even though that is one of the most important things to do – it is what draws someone to your article! Thanks again for the tips!
Janis
22. May, 2011
Now those really are points that everyone should put into serious consideration, especially that one about keywords and their density in the articles.
Thanks for sharing this really!
Ann Glenister
29. Jul, 2011
You say “Brian Clark has a fantastic post” and I totally agree. Though written a few years back the ideas still seem as valid as they were. I have written loads of articles but am still trying to get the right balance between a strong, immediate response from the reader and the need to optimize for SEO. I think this is a skill that takes practice to acquire.