Monday 5 July 2010

Writing Articles that Boost Website Traffic

Articles must contain searchable keywords

When you invest time writing articles to gain traffic to your web site they must appeal to both the search engines and your potential readers. Careful consideration must be given to the article structure and content, follow these steps to write effective articles that will boost website traffic.

Step 1. Choose a topic

Your goal is to write on a topic where you solve a problem i.e.
-7 reasons to use articles to market your web site
-How to write an effective article
-How to market your articles to boost your web traffic
Sometimes it's difficult to come up with a topic that you feel inspired to write about. An easy method is to write about a problem that you have come across while working. You will have an in-depth knowledge of finite details. Then after having solved this problem you should feel comfortable writing about it knowing that this article will then help others that may have struggled with the same problem.

Step 2. Keyword research

The primary goal of article writing is to make your article as search engine friendly as possible. Within the article include searchable keywords that search engines will spider. Therefore researching appropriate keywords before weaving them into your article is crucial.

Use the keyword research tool to find which words or phrases are searched on most often. It will display up to 100 top results depending on the data available for that keyword.

Make a list of the top researched keywords and write them into your article being careful not to repeat them too often so that it won't read smoothly. You want to your article to appeal to your readers also.

Step 3. Create an outline for your article

Your article should include a headline, an introduction, the content body, a conclusion, a list of resources and a bio.

Headline - make this as catchy as possible because your reader will read this first then decide if he or she will continue reading the rest of the article. i.e.
"Writing Articles that Boost Website Traffic"


Introduction - introduce the problem you will be discussing in your article or write a short story of your experience with the problem.

Body - discuss all the solutions to the problem you outlined in the introduction. Break up each point into separate paragraphs and keep them to about 5 lines. You may want to create a sub-heading for each point. This makes it easier to read as most people will scan your article when reading it online.

Conclusion - this should include a brief summary of your article and a call for the reader to take action.

Resources – This can be a synopsis of the article with some keywords.

Bio - this is the place where you can safely include a bio about yourself and your business plus provide a link to your web site or blog. This provides an opportunity for readers to visit your website and learn more about your product or services.

Step 4. Article length

Begin writing out your article without worrying too much about the length. It's more important to let all your ideas flow out of your mind first. If you think it's getting too long split it up into two or more articles. It's often easier to write a short article of 500 words than one of 1000 words.

Most article publishers prefer articles between 500 to 800 words and will not accept articles any longer than that.

Step 5. Take a break

After you have written the article, come back to it after several hours, a day or several days. This will enable you to take a fresh look at it, find new mistakes or even want to rewrite a paragraph or two to make it flow better.

Step 6. Check your article

After writing your article, run it through a spell checker first, then read it through a few times to check for spelling mistakes the spell checker may have missed and to correct the grammar and punctuation. Make sure it flows well by clearly identifying the problem, providing a solution and concluding with an action step or steps. Get someone else to read it over. Often they will find the mistakes that you missed.

Step 7. Format your article

You will need to format your sentence length at 60-65 words per line before submitting it for publication. This will enable people to read it in their email software. If the sentence length is longer than this the article may break up making it impossible to read.

Step 8. Conclusion

If you consistently write an article every other week and submit it for publication you will soon generate a steady stream of traffic to your web site for years to come.

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