How to Optimize Your Articles For The Search Engines

If your goal is to write an article that will attract as many visitors as possible to it, you will need to understand some basics of search engine optimization and internet marketing. In this article, I will concentrate on proper keyword use.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• computer
• an idea for an article

1. Before you even write your article, check with places like Google and Yahoo to see if your topic has any competition. For someone who isn't skilled in internet marketing to know other ways to check for a viable market, seeing competition is a GOOD thing. This means that the niche has proven to have keywords that are in demand i.e. being searched for on the internet.
2. You can use a service such as globalpromoter.com to search for related keywords for you. This will tell you how many people have actually used that keyword or keyword phrase in the current month.
3. Now that you have an idea as to what keywords to use, now it's time to write your article. When writing your article, USE those keywords. Google and other search engines place more value (= higher ranking) for those pages which come up for that keyword. Example: if you searched for "dog" pages which talk about dog training and use the word dog more often will show up long before someone who just commented that their boyfriend was a real dog.
4. Use your keywords and keyword phrases properly. Don't just throw them in here and there and make absolutely no sense. Your readers will not appreciate you. And it's not just about getting them there, you should be aiming for creating content that is worthy of being passed along to someone else. This is 'viral content'. This is the content that will get you the most hits (visitors).
5. If your not confident in your spelling and grammar skills, write your articles up into a Word document first. After you do this, read the article to yourself OUT LOUD. You'll be amazed how much easier it is to get a good flow to an article if you read it aloud.
6. Now that you've written your article and published it on a website (such as right here on eHow), you need to promote it using services like Digg, Stumble Upon and Del.icio.us. Where it says to insert keywords... If it tells you how many keywords you can have, be sure to limit yourself in number but also put in your top keywords.
7. Comma separated - This means, obviously, that they want you to place commas between your keywords or KEYWORD PHRASES. This means that instead of typing dog, training, potty, house, train for your 5 keywords you could have dog training, house training, potty training, how to house train your dog, house train dog for your 5 keywords.
8. Space separated - Same rules apply as above with one word vs phrases but instead of commas, you use spaces. Using the same keywords as above, this would be: dogtraining housetraining pottytraining howtohousetrainyourdog housetraindog. In other words, mash your keyword phrases into one word. No, it won't make sense to you but the engines that service uses can tell the difference. Don't over analyze, just do as they ask. :)
9. If you want to use a keyword that isn't in your article; for example, you wish to use the keyword "canine" to go with the above keyword list. After all, it's related, right? Sure, you can do that. But it will cost you. Re-read Step 3. If the keyword is a good one, use it in your writing. If it's not worthy of being in your article, it really isn't going to pay many dividends to use it in your keyword list. Go for it if you must but don't expect much traffic for the strangled effort.
10. I hope that you found this article useful. If so, please take a second to rate this article by clicking on the stars above. (5th star on your right is the best). Leave a comment if you enjoyed this article or if you have any helpful ideas of your own to throw in. I know I only grazed the top of this iceberg but that was meant so I didn't overwhelm those just starting out.