Writing SEO articles is a simple three step process, Research, Write, Link.

Search Engine Optimized Articles

These are articles that you aim at particular search phrases that people are using. You must convince Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask that your article is exactly what a searcher is looking for when they type in a particular phrase. If they ARE convinced then your article will be placed at the top of the search results for that phrase.

SEO Articles-Research

Other writers and companies are also trying to convince search engines that THEIR pages are the most relevant. Some of the companies have massive budgets to commission hundreds of articles that will all link to the one they are promoting. You cannot compete with the big players, get out of their league, get off the field. You need to find a search phrase that it is not worth the big players bothering with.

Finding those search phrases that are worth your while, but not worth the big players’ efforts is THE key to making money from articles.

When you use the free Google Adsense Keyword Tool, Go to page 5 of the results and start there. Order the results in terms of search frequency:
· Is the Cost per click over 40c?
· Are any of the pages on page 1 of Google’s search results articles such as hubpages or ezine pages?
· Open a new page in Google Type in…allintitle:your keyphrase. Ideally this number will be very low, less than a thousandth of the number of searches
· Check the allintitle results to see if page 1 includes any articles or blogs
· Check the Google Page Rank of any page on the first results page. Are any of them zero?

If you can find search terms with all five of these positive, then you have found a phrase that it is worth aiming an article at.

SEO Articles-Writing

You need to include the phrase you are trying to rank for in the title of your article. It also needs to appear in the first paragraph at least once and in at least one sub heading.

You need to write an article that is at least 500 words long and to include variations on that key phrase as well as the exact key phrase throughout the article. Be careful that the article reads naturally and not as though it is just stuffed with the key words.

Structure your article using H1, H2 and H3 tags in a hierarchy.

If you use any images, be sure to use the alt text tag to label your image using your key phrase, or something very close to it.

If you write longer articles you will pick up people searching for other key phrases, quite naturally, because you just happen to use “their” phrase. Aim to write 800-1000 word articles. This article is about 860 words.

Use good English. Spelling can be US or UK English, but bad grammar will hurt your rankings.

SEO Articles-Linking

Google attaches great importance to the number and quality of links to a page. You can wait ten years and hope that enough people link to your page to make a difference; or you can build links to your site yourself. Most article writers build their own links.

Avoid any programs that claim they build links automatically. Even if these programs do work, Google suddenly sees 10,000 links into a page that did not exist yesterday and thinks “Ahhhh, a link spammer. I won’t index this page for at least 6 months”.

You can build different kinds of links.

1. The best links are those you get from guest posting on other blogs. You can use anchor text that includes the key phrase you are trying to rank for, which will help your rankings. Some blogs may have a Page Rank of up to 3, meaning that Google sees a link like that as much more important.

2. Links from other blogs you own, ideally on different IP addresses are as good as links from other blogs.

3. Links you obtain from similar articles you have written yourself on other sites are also helpful. Again you can use any anchor text you like, so use keyword related anchors.

4. Links you obtain from RSS feed services can be useful, especially if those links are do-follow.

5. Links from do-follow forums can help your cause, but use the forum for at least a week before posting any links to make sure you understand the way the forum works.

6. Links from short article sites such as You Say Too, She Told Me or Best Reviewer (Links opens in a new window) are useful. These sites usually ask you to write 200-300 word posts and are often WordPress sites.

7. Links from sites like Info Pirate that allow 2 or 3 sentence posts are also of some use.

Some links are Do-Follow, meaning that they help the page rank of your article. Other links are No-Follow, meaning that search engine spiders follow them, but these links will not help to improve your page rank.

In Conclusion: SEO Articles must include all three aspects of writing online; research, appropriate writing and links back to your article.