Choosing Article Marketing Topics For Increased SEO Benefit

Choosing Article Marketing Topics For Increased SEO Benefit

Posted on 31. Dec, 2008 by 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”

  1. 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.

    Reply to this comment
  2. 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!

    Reply to this comment
  3. Dany

    12. Mar, 2009

    Great post, thanks for the info

    Reply to this comment
  4. 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! :)

    Reply to this comment
  5. 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

    Reply to this comment
  6. 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

    Reply to this comment
  7. 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.

    Reply to this comment
  8. 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…

    Reply to this comment
  9. 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.

    Reply to this comment
  10. 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.

    Reply to this comment
  11. 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.

    Reply to this comment
  12. SEO tools review

    07. Feb, 2010

    Thanks for all these great tips

    Reply to this comment
  13. 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.

    Reply to this comment
  14. 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.

    Reply to this comment
  15. Maddison Richards

    23. Jun, 2010

    What are the best SEO Tools on the market today? i have some off page optimization checker in hand..:*

    Reply to this comment
  16. Christine

    24. Jun, 2010

    Hi Maddison! It depends on what you are trying to accomplish. What is your goal?

    Reply to this comment
  17. 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.

    Reply to this comment
  18. 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!

    Reply to this comment
  19. 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!

    Reply to this comment
  20. 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!

    Reply to this comment
  21. 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.

    Reply to this comment

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