Article Marketing Writing Techniques SEO Copywriters
There are several reasons why we often recommend that clients pursue article marketing: to establish themselves as industry experts, to increase awareness of their products and services, and to build backlinks to their websites. The first two are fairly obvious, which is why we are going to focus on the third in this post.
Starting an article marketing campaign does not guarantee links. In fact, it is entirely possible to achieve absolutely no linking benefit to your website — and it is amazing how many people are doing just that. Here are some tips to optimize a distribution article for maximum SEO benefit:
Choose Keywords Wisely
Keywords are the search terms that your readers or customers use to find your website. Knowing which keywords you wish to target is one of the single most important components to your Internet marketing campaign. When done correctly, keyword research will be able to pinpoint which keywords your competitors are targeting and which keywords are more easily mastered than others.
Choose one primary keyword to target in your article, as well as 2-4 related keywords to sprinkle throughout. Using these related keywords helps the search engines get an even clearer idea about the topic of your article. Believe it or not, search engines can tell the difference between a keyword that appears on a page of many unrelated terms and one that appears with terms related to its topic.
Using Keywords In Your Title And Summary
You should use the keyword in the title of the article whenever possible — trying to position the keyword toward the first part of the title. For example, a title that reads:
Article Marketing: 3 Things Strategies for Achieving More Visibility
Vs.
3 Things Strategies for Achieving More Visibility with Article Marketing
Using keywords in the title is important because the title often becomes the title tag and sometimes the URL of the web page. The title tag and URL are two of the most important pieces of a webpage that help search engines identify the topic of the content. Not only does the title tag give the search engines a critical tip as to your topic, but the title tag usually becomes the dark blue title that appears in the search engines results page. This is why it is essential to create article titles that not only include keywords, but that also captivate readers. A good, solid, intriguing title can make the difference between your article being seen and being overlooked.
The summary of your article often becomes the Meta description for the page on which it’s published. The Meta description is usually the short summary that appears in the search engine results page beneath the title. The same logic that applies to writing captivating, keyword-rich titles also applies to writing summaries.
Using Keywords In The Body And Author Bio
When writing articles for article marketing, a good target keyword density is between 1.0% and 1.3%. Trying to “over optimize” by using keywords at a higher percent density can cause the article to be rejected by many publishers.
It is also very important that you use your main keywords as anchor text whenever the online article distribution site will allow. Google uses anchor text to determine page ranking. When you use your keyword as an anchor text, you are essentially telling Google (and the reader) what your website is all about.
The author bio is the most important place to use keywords. Many article submission sites allow for anchor text in the ‘about the author’ bio - and taking this opportunity critical. When creating a bio with anchor text, it is beneficial to include two links: one link to the homepage in a main keyword, and a link to an internal page using the keyword the internal page is targeting.
We see many businesses make the mistake of only building links to their homepages. This is a missed opportunity! It is very important to build links to a site’s internal pages — in fact we recommend that an article be written and distributed linking to any new pages created. The backlinks generated by that article will help establish the new page with the search engines.
By choosing to target the right keywords, using your main keyword in the titles and subheads of an article and of course linking to your website with anchor text keywords, you will effectively be using article marketing to build a backlink campaign for your website.
January 12th, 2009 at 8:29 am
Thanks for these great tips! I never realized that you could actually “over optimize” key words when writing articles. I will follow your suggested guidelines for keyword density in the future.
February 2nd, 2009 at 3:16 am
[…] 10.Article Marketing Writing Technique SEO Copywriters builds on the basics for those starting into article marketing. […]
February 24th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Great article.
Thers obviously more to article marketing than we are normally taught. It has changed the way I’ll think about my articles.
Thanks.
March 14th, 2009 at 2:47 am
This might be a little off subject, but have you looked at seoclientprospectingrobot dot com? Just wondering if you have any reviews of it, I’m thinking of buying a copy, and wanted to see if anyone had bought a copy yet.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Great feedback on internal (deep) linking. So many folks link only to their home page, and they always use the same anchor text when doing so! Mix and match is the way to go - and deep linking really does help coax search engines “deeper” into one’s blog site!
May 7th, 2009 at 9:26 am
Great article. This is just what I was looking for.
May 7th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Great tips. Excellent advice for building a backlink campaign for your website through article marketing.
May 13th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
I agree that it is needed to spare the special attention to the selection of keywords!
May 14th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
I agree with all of you points in this post. It’s basically all about finding the right keywords and then putting them in the right places in the article.
June 3rd, 2009 at 5:35 am
Great advice! Particularly if using the bigger article websites that require a keyword density of 2% or less. I personally recommend Google’s free keyword research tool for accurate keyword research.
June 3rd, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Great Article! Article marketing has to be one of the greatest way to get your business name out there in the search engines. I submitted an aritcle for a client and got 250 views within 2 months. I submitted that same exact article to 50 different article directories. The only problem is that your page rank will lower for that article if you post it on your website because its considered duplicate content by google; however, it is still well worth posting it on article directories because of visbility!
June 4th, 2009 at 2:37 am
So many folks link only to their home page, and they always use the same anchor text when doing so!
June 4th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
I can’t seem to get your RSS feed to work with my program. Do you mind telling me the url so I can read your posts on my own program?
July 13th, 2009 at 7:19 am
Good post.
I think the idea of rotating your links and anchor text may be one of the most overlooked benefits of article marketing.
Just by changing up your resource boxes, you can easily get dozens of more related links which will appear more natural and have a greater SEO affect.
August 12th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
And of course, one of the most important questions is how to do keyword research. Do you have a recommended way of doing it? Of course, Word tracker is recommended, but, really, how do you know if it is a good keyword or not?
August 18th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Great articles & Nice a site.
August 21st, 2009 at 8:40 am
Thanks for the post. These are all very useful suggestions. I was just watching a Matt Cutts video last night, and he suggested similar things, in the context of blog posts.
One thing I’d add: sometimes it’s a good idea not to use the “about the author” resource box just to ramble about how wonderful you are, but you can use it as an extension of the article and a “call to action”. On the other hand, I’ve noticed that articles with a proper resource box at the end seem to get syndicated more, so it really depends on whether you want more click-thrus, or more distribution.
October 31st, 2009 at 3:47 am
Great tips here…Keywords is important but do take note of the resource box too. It is the main aim to let readers clicked and visit your website.
October 31st, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Article Marketing is really a good way in promoting your products and also your website. i used to write health articles on a big pharmaceutical company for the purpose of article marketing.
November 10th, 2009 at 1:32 am
Thanks for this information, it was very helpful. Keep up the good work.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Article Marketing is one of the best ways you can promote your website and the products that you sell. The articles that you publish online or offline also helps to establish the credibility of your website or product.
November 17th, 2009 at 3:04 am
Hello, I found your website when i was searching Google for websites related to this article. I have tell you, your site is good. I like the design too, its nice. I don’t have the time now to fully read your blog but I have noted it and I also registered for your RSS feed. I will be back in a night or two. Thanks for an informative site.
January 10th, 2010 at 7:56 am
This is a fantastic post. I have learned some new useful things. I have a question though, could you recommend a good keyword search tool other than Google Keyword tool?
January 10th, 2010 at 7:59 am
Article marketing is truly one of the best ways to advertise. Another good thing is that you are not only using articles to promote your website/product/service etc. you are also able to provide quality content to your readers. The better content you have, more readers you will attract. Anyway, I found this post to be very useful, especially when it comes to keyword linking. Thanks!
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:52 am
What a great little post about copywriting - well summed up!
March 9th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
I have done a few press releases but I have never found these to be a good means of achieving anything special as far as SEO goes. There are so many other better avenues for that.