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The Role of Articles in SEO - Achieving Top
Rankings in Weeks
You have employed every trick in the SEO handbook but that first
page ranking in the search engines has been eluding you. You are
about to give up. But before you do, perhaps you may wish to
consider taking up article marketing. First of all, what exactly is
article marketing? Article marketing is the process of writing and
submitting original content to article directories. This is not a
new concept. For years, marketers have been publishing content in
newsletters, magazines, and other publications to gain exposure for
their businesses.
The process starts by submitting an article to an editor. If the
content is suitable, the editor publishes the article, and the
marketer gets some exposure. The process is then repeated with as
many publications as possible. In theory, if each publication brings
just one customer, then a hundred publications may bring a hundred
customers. A hundred customers may just be what a new start-up is
looking for.
On the Internet, the results can be astonishing. There are literally
thousands of article directories on the Internet. With each article
you submit, you are allowed to include two to three text links in
the author resource box. Do note that most directories won't allow
you to include links in your article body. So keep them to your
author signature.
Every time an article directory publishes an article, the website
will experience an immediate surge in traffic. This traffic comes
from the subscribed readers. After that, the surge dies down a
little. The marketer now waits for the search engines to index and
rank the articles. Once the article ranks in the search engines, the
marketer will receive a constant stream of traffic from the indexed
articles.
In addition, the links in the articles will also give the search
rankings of the website a much needed boost. When someone writes and
submits articles, the wheels of SEO has already started to turn,
whether the marketer is aware of it or not. Each published article
carries at least two links, pointing back to the author website. In
other words, the author website gets high quality back links from
well established authority sites whenever an article is approved for
publication. But to achieve high rankings in the search results, you
need to execute article marketing in the correct manner.
How to prepare your articles for
submission.
Article submission can take up a lot of time. So you want to be sure
that you get the highest rate of approval from the editors. Here is
what you should do to ensure that you get most of your articles
approved.
Appropriate word count - Articles should ideally be 500 words and
above. You can write whatever you want. But bear in mind that the
editors are looking for valuable content that their readers will
enjoy reading. So your articles should not be self promotional. All
promotional materials should be included in the author resource box,
which will appear at the end of the article.
Proper formatting - The article does not have to be perfect. But it
has to be legible, and relatively free of grammatical errors. The
style of writing is not that important. Most styles will be
accepted. Use the hard return to separate paragraphs, and do not
include any HTML. Not all article directories accept HTML tags in
the article body. As long as the article is of decent quality, it
should be approved.
Include target keywords in article title - Your target keywords
should be include in the article title. This will increase the
chances of your articles rising to the top in the search results.
Having keywords in the article title is also part of SEO. When
performing SEO, you want the search engines to find relevant content
that link to your sites. Having your target keywords in the title is
one way of letting the search bots know that the content in the
article is related to what you have to offer in your website.
Write a catchy title and interesting summary - The title is very
important because if it cannot capture the attention of your reader,
you have just lost a potential visitor. Your title should be
speaking directly to your target audience. The article summary
should also be clear and concise. Don't beat around the bush. You
can elaborate further in the article body. For the summary, use
short and powerful sentences.
Delivering the promise of your article title - Make sure that you
stay on topic and deliver the promise in the article title. For
example, if your article is about link building, then make sure you
share some methods on how to build one way back links quickly. Don't
stray and write about your pet and then forget to go back to your
main topic.
Using anchor texts in links - Anchor texts are the words that are in
between a set of HTML link tags. Before going into article
marketing, you should already have a set of keywords to target. Use
these keywords not just in your article title, but also as your
anchor texts. For instance, if you are targeting the keywords
"Search Engine Optimization", use these words in your links. Don't
use words like "click here" or any other generic term.
Once you have the above in place, you can start submitting the
articles to the article directories.
How to submit articles quickly and easily.
Before you start submitting the articles, you must first get a list
of article directories. Your list should contain at least 200
article directories. Choose directories that have been around for
years, and have high page rank.
The article submission process can be grueling if you don't have the
right tools to help you. As a business owner, you shouldn't be doing
such manual tasks yourself. You have more important things to do,
like developing products, marketing, and so on. The process
shouldn't be consuming too much of your valuable time. Here are some
quick suggestions.
Use a free form filling tool to help you - There are tools available
for download, such as RoboForm that will help you fill up the forms
at the article directories. Once you set this up, it's just clicking
and submitting. That will save you from having to copy and paste the
article into each and every submission form. A great way to submit
articles if you are on a shoe string budget.
Invest in article submission software - There are special software
in the market that will help you submit your articles either on a
semi-automated basis, or on a fully automated basis. If it's a fully
automated process, you don't have to be actively involved. You will,
however, have to let the software complete the submission process
before shutting it down.
Outsource article submission - You can hire someone else to submit
the articles for you. This can be a dedicated person that you work
with, or it can be a professional service provider. The difference
between this option, and that of using software, is that you don't
have to monitor the submissions. Simply place an order, and you can
switch off your computer and go work on other stuff.
Article marketing, when done right, can bring short, mid and long
term traffic. The short term traffic comes from the current
readership base of the article directories. The mid to long term
traffic comes from the search engines and the articles. As articles
remain online indefinitely on the Internet, they remain as traffic
baits and help to attract more visitors to your websites.
If you have done your keyword research, and heed the advice given
above, your site could achieve top rankings in the search engines
within weeks. |
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