"How To Write Effective And Unique Articles That Are Optimized for the Search Engines"

By Karl Augustine
Posted Saturday, June 26, 2004

It is a well known fact that writing,
distributing and posting articles to
various location on the web is an
extremely effective way to generate
targeted traffic and establish
yourself as an experienced marketer in
your field. Unique articles that help
solve the reader's problems, assists
the reader in advancing their
marketing acumen, or otherwise
generally inform tend to stay posted
on many web sites throughout the
Internet and usually generate targeted
traffic for the writer.

In order to further maximize the
benefits of writing and posting unique
articles, it makes good business sense
to optimize the articles so the search
engines list the URL's associated with
those articles on search engine
results pages (SERP's). Ideally, you'd
like to see your article URL on the
1st page of the SERP's so you can
capitalize on the free and targeted
traffic from these listings.

So, what type of strategy can be
utilized to optimize your articles for
the search engines?

There's quite a few different ways but
here are some tactics that you may
want to use:

Article optimization tactic 1: Choose
keywords that complement your USP and
name your article page accordingly.

When choosing keywords that will be the
central theme of your article, it is
necessary to define what your article
will be about, who the information in
the article will benefit, and how it
will tie into your USP before choosing
your keywords. After you've thought
through this, then come up with a list
of keywords that will be suitable as
the central them of the article.

Next, decide which keywords you will
center your article around based on
the number of searches that keyword
gets per day and by assessing how much
competition there is for that keyword
phrase. Once you have chosen your
keyword phrase for the article, name
your page.

Example: If 'green widgets' is the
keyword you wish to base your article
on, you may want to name your web
page 'greenwdgets.htm' or 'greenwdgets.html'
or 'greenwdgets.shtml'.

Article optimization tactic 2: Utilize
keyword in the title tag.

Utilize your keywords that you've
chosen for your article in the title
tag of the web page.

Example:

Article optimization tactic 3: Utilize
keyword in headline tags.

Using keywords in headline tags will
increase rankings of your web pages.

Ideally you would use the keywords as
the headline, but usually this doesn't
look natural.

Keep the h tags before and after the
entire headline.

Example:
Green widgets: We have the
most affordable and powerful green
widget available anywhere, guaranteed!

Article optimization tactic 4: Utilize
keywords in the 1st sentence of the
initial paragraph.

This an easily be accomplished and
still make the paragraph read well and
in a natural sounding tone if read
back. Remember that you want your
reader to feel like they are being
talked with not "at" and you want your
reader to not realize that your
placement of your keyword phrases
might be planned.

Article optimization tactic 5: Utilize
keywords in text with appropriate
keyword density.

After you write your article, you can
easily edit to try to obtain the best
keyword density for the search engines
you'd like to target.

Google's optimum keyword density is
between 1.5% to 2.5% keyword density
at the time of this writing.

Once you have the article written you
can use GoRank's keyword optimization
tool (http://www.gorank.com/seotools/)
to check what the keyword density is
of the text of the article so you can
edit accordingly.

Remember, you don't want to 'stuff'
the page with your chosen and targeted
keyword phrase but you do want to make
sure that you utilize your keywords
when you can up to the required amount
for the desired keyword density.

Article optimization tactic 6: Bold or
italicize keywords in text.

When bolding and italicizing your
keywords in your articles, it isn't
necessary to bold and/or italicize
every keyword phrase. When the reader
comes across bolded and italicized
words they add emphasis to the text at
the time they read those words. So you
should use your best judgment as to
what looks right and 'reads' right when
you edit your article.

One key item to remember to write
naturally so you get your message
across in a human manner.

You want the reader to click to your
link at the end or in the body of the
article and the more human and
conversational your article comes
across, the more likely that the
reader will travel to the URL you'd
like them to see. Some marketers write
their articles without search engine
optimization in mind and then go back
and edit them for the search engines.

After your article is optimized, do
all you can to get it posted to other
web sites so the number of relevant
links pointing to that article is
heightened. If you get your article
posted to some of the heavier web
sites that post articles and have the
correct categories where your article
will fit, the faster your article URL
will get indexed by the search
engines.

Be humble, work hard, work smart.
About the Author
Author, "9 Deadly Mistakes To Avoid When Starting An Online Business"

Starting an online business

"65 Answers To SEO Questions..."

(www.seoexpertinterview.com)