How to Write Solid SEO Articles: What You Need to Know

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO as it is more generally referred to, is a critical component of writing a strong article and seeing that it achieves online visibility.  Anyone interested in seeing their website ranked in the top results produced by major search engines like Google owes it to themselves to acquire a working knowledge of SEO in principle and execution.

Quality Control

All too often, authors forget that writing SEO doesn’t mean you’re not also writing for readers.  The high traffic that might come from being well-ranked in a search engine’s results pages might turn out to be an empty victory if your website is shoddy or suffers from poor content control.  Nobody wants to read some pointless article weighted down with endless keywords and out-of-context plugs for products.  Conveying useful, topical information is the bottom line in writing a successful article.  Remember that the articles hosted on your website reflect on your agency or site, and thus they should be of the highest quality.

Keep an Ear to the Ground

Remember that your competitors are running in the same race, and more likely than not they’ll be using a lot of the same tactics you’re just now learning.  So how do you keep up with, and outpace, the competition?  Innovation, skill, and attention to detail are important factors in keeping up, but the final word on the subject is hard work.  Staying current, producing quality material, and keeping the flow of material constant and relevant are all a matter of application, and they’ll give you the edge you need against your competitors.

Rank to Live, Don’t Live to Rank

Achieve a good search engine results page ranking is part of a strategy to achieve exposure, bring in traffic to your site, and increase your visibility.  Ranking alone won’t increase revenues, or motivate your visitor’s to make purchases.  Selling your consumers on your products, services, or ideas falls to your Web copy and your sales plan, and while writing is a great way to hook new visitors you should never forget that getting them in the door is just the beginning of the process.  Ranking shouldn’t be achieved at the expense of your website’s content.

Keywords

Keyword density and keywording are facets of SEO that get discussed quite often in business and copywriting circles.  Selection of relevant keywords is an important part of the vetting process that creates a pointed, focused article.  Keywords related to your site’s particular content or subject, for instance, are advisable.  As a vendor of lighting fixtures you want your site and its linked content and articles to appear highly ranked when consumers browsing the internet search for “lighting fixtures.”  Bringing in new clients and convincing readers and visitors to pay for your services and products are essential concerns for any vendor, and selecting the right keywords can help step up the rate at which they’re exposed to your site.

Avoid the common practice of spray-and-pray article writing.  Just because a topic is trending successfully online doesn’t mean that your site should host an article about it.  Articles that appear out of place or off-topic will make your site look unprofessional, while articles clearly associated with your site promote a feeling of interconnected professionalism.

Common SEO Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

SEO articles produced by trained professionals are a hot commodity, in demand by professionals in all Web-based vending and promoting sectors.  The business community understands the need for third-party support in producing quality content for their sites, but there are some stumbling blocks that routinely disrupt the business models of these consumers.  Let’s take a look at some of the most common.

Unprofessional SEO service providers make leave their articles riddled with errors.  Spelling and grammatical mistakes, incorrect technical terminology, and all sort of other concerns often plague unchecked SEO articles.  Some writers don’t even edit their work before sending it in, and poorly-structured articles full of mistakes are a sure way to make yourself and your site look unprofessional.  Damage to your image is something you want to avoid at all costs, so be sure to ask for samples when hiring writers.

Production of unique content is the basic premise under which an SEO article writer or writing service is hired by an agency.  Many writers, however, provide blatant copies of articles from the Web at large.  This constitutes plagiarism, and avoiding it should be a priority concern for you and your agency.  It’s hard to shift the blame onto the writer or vendor after plagiarized material has gone online with your name slapped right on the masthead.  Which, after all, is what you’re paying for.

Audience mistargeting is a pervasive problem within SEO article writing.  Make sure you provide your writer or SEO service with adequate knowledge about the groups they’re targeting, the interests and keywords associated with those groups, and the kind of content they’re used to.  You don’t want your service producing articles aimed at programmers when you’re trying to target gamers or hardware engineers, and a little communication can help to avoid these and other embarrassing mistakes.

Tips for Maximizing SEO Article Impact

Bringing in traffic to your website is an important function SEO performs.  You want to get ranked, get a steady flow of traffic, and increase revenue once those visitors start coming in.  It might sound simple, but there’s a lot that goes into this process and knowing the tips and tricks professionals use to build their own online presence can help you get ahead in the game.

Search Engines: The Facts

Understanding how search engines rank sites is the starting point for any aspiring user of SEO.  Most search engines employ web crawlers, automated programs that search the publicly accessible net, following links and indexing sites according to a preprogrammed but dynamic set of algorithms.  The algorithms used by these Web crawlers or “spider” programs are very complex and consider hundreds of factors when assessing each website they visit, but the most important factor is almost always the number of links hosted externally to a site that lead back to it.  In other words, the number of other sites linked to yours.

Think about it for a minute.  Search engine rankings are, in part, a massive popularity contest on a scale advertisers and vendors haven’t experienced before the past ten years.  Other websites indicating your own is a strong indicator of quality and respect, and SEO is a good way to start getting their attention in the first place.  Building a network of supporters this way relates strongly to the concept of Organic SEO, or high rankings achieved through acclaim and popularity.  It can’t be overstated how important these networks of recommendations are.  One way to achieve them is to seek out quality websites that relate to your own without impeding on its function and to promote them yourself, creating a popularity debt.

Changing it Up

Unique content draws attention from spiders much more effectively than recycled content does.  While this can place a strain on an in-house writing or copywriting staff, professional third-party service can be especially helpful here.  The more a website updates its content, the more often spiders will crawl it.  This can help your website shoot right to the top of search results pages.  Many hosting sites provide services to stagger postings, so stockpiling fresh articles can be a great method to make sure there’s always something new on your website.

Conclusion

SEO is a big part of website design and maintenance in today’s online market, and not engaging in it is like shooting yourself in the foot before the race even starts.  The challenges and tripping points might seem intimidating, but with the right professional help and software, along with freeware aids like Google Keywords, SEO can boost your visibility and, as a result, your revenues.

Avoiding the pitfalls adherent to SEO is important, and you should take those challenges seriously, but don’t be afraid to take some risks once you’ve consulted with professionals.  SEO can get your website where it needs to be: right in the spotlight.

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