Article Writing Tips

Title

Always make sure the keyword phrase you are targeting appears in the title, preferably within the first three or four words. Try to get the phrase word for word, in order, unless it really doesn’t make sense.

For trained writers, we’re taught that the title or headline is everything – we have to draw in the reader. This still applies, but getting the keyword placement right takes precedence over smart writing.

This goes for the article as a whole as well – keep it simple stupid (KISS). Remember that the average reader is 7th grade level. This is severely reduced when it comes to online readers and web surfers.

Keep your article title below 60 characters. This is for purely aesthetic reasons only and looks better on the page. You and I both need the site to look good to keep the reader engaged.

The title of the article should always be the title of the page as well.

Article Body

Each article should be between 300 and 800 words. Below this figure will not be published. If you want to post an article above 800 words, split it into pages, the facility exists within the article submission form to do this.

Article content must be clean, grammatically correct, and get in the habit of using only one space between sentences. This was hard for me to get used to, but it helps when publishing to the web, for consistency purposes.

One way to do this as you try to get in the habit, is to just write the article, and then when you’re done, select “find and replace,” and put two spaces in the “find” field, and one space in the “replace field.” Then hit “Replace All.”

Paragraphs should be short and sweet. Don’t worry about perfect transitions or keeping each paragraph cohesive with topic intros and conclusions – with web writing the chief concern is keeping the reader’s attention and short paragraphs of no more than two to four sentences helps do the trick. always leave one empty line between paragraphs. White space in your article is important as too little and the reader will click away as they see the text as too hard to read, too much white space will give the effect that the writer of the article doesn't care about presentation. What does this say about your website or business?

Pay attention to Theme. This means that if you’re writing abut selling cars, don’t use metaphors or analogies like “as easy as making apple pie.”

So you want to keep descriptions or flowery writing to a minimum. For instance, if you compare trying to sell a truck to pulling teeth, and you go on this whole analogy of how the seller is like the dentist that everyone needs to see but no one wants to visit, though it makes for great writing, the search engine can’t tell if your site is about dentistry or selling cars.

Keyword Density

It’s important not to concentrate too much on this. There’s no magic number, and if every article is exactly the same amount of words, with exactly the same percentage of keywords showing up in each article, then the search engines will assume it’s been auto generated and blacklist the site. We are very aware of keyword spamming, and do not recommend  that you use the keyword in every sentence. Try to spread it out evenly across your article, perhaps every 2 paragraphs or so.

So just write organically. The only guidelines here are make sure that the keyword appears in the first sentence exactly the same way it appears in the title (but make sure that the first sentence is not even close to the title in terms of word for word phrasing).

Continue to of course use the keyword phrase throughout the article as appropriate, but also be sure to use derivatives of the keyword (this helps theme). For instance, “online dating blonde” would have the following derivatives that you’d naturally use in an article:

Date a blonde

Dating blondes

online dating sites

blondes on internet dating sites

Etc.

Call to Action

Articles have dual purpose: to rank well with the search engines, and to get visitors to click through to the homepage of the site, or to fill out a contact form/fill out a profile.

Because each article gets ranked with the search engines, it becomes a landing page – the first thing a visitor sees. Therefore, not only must it be written well from both a human perspective and a search engine’s perspective, but it has to persuade the visitor to take action after reading it.

Review

Always spell check your articles and re-read for grammar and spacing. Make sure it reads well and logically for a human reader and that keyword density feels natural and flows organically.

Posting Tips

You may post your article in up to 3 categories. Although the categories have to be related to your article content.

We get so many articles at present, that we are starting to crack down on a number of areas. Here is a short list of issues that will mean your article will not be approved.

1. Do not post company PR. The amount of articles we turn away which are simply a glorified advert for the companies products is unbelievable. Write good quality original content and your readers will click through.

2. Select a maximum of 3 categories.

3. Title should be human readable.

4. Article content should be between 300 - 800 words. Use extra pages if longer.

5. Keep links to 3 max.

6. Do not keyword spam.

7. Ensure your article does not contain code copied from another site. This happens a lot!!!

8. Post your own work and do not plagiarise other people's work.

9. Check your article is not already in the database before you submit it.