How to Optimize Your Online Articles
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Writing for Web pages isn’t like writing for any other medium, including print. The online world is all about search engine optimization, keywords and articles that are rich enough to tempt lots and lots of traffic. Everything you know about writing does still apply, but there’s a lot more to learn when your writing is made for the Internet. Need to know how to optimize your online articles so that they’re more of what search engines want to see? Keep reading.
The Topic
Almost any topic can be made interesting with good writing. A few puns, a joke here or there and you’ve got an engaging read even when the subject matter is less-than-stellar (or otherwise totally boring). First, know what you’re writing about. If you need any source materials (definitions, links, etc.), make sure they’re close at hand.
Have an idea in your mind of what you want to say in your article and how it’s going to conclude. Like a good story, a good article must have a beginning, a middle and a definite end. The topic of the article is important, but the real meat of the Internet market is the words you’re going to use within that article. All the words you use in writing matter, but in online writing you have to place a special emphasis on a certain few.
The Keywords
Without words, you wouldn’t have an article. It goes without saying that the words you use are the most important aspect of any article, but in the online market there is somehow an even greater emphasis on words. Actually, all the focus is on your keywords.
Keywords are the words (and phrases) that average Internet surfers will use to find your articles. Search engines are incredibly user-friendly Web sites. A person goes to the engine, types in a few words and automatically receives pages of results. In order for people to find your article, you want to be sure to use plenty of keywords.
What keywords should you use? Well, what is your article about? If you’re writing about creating a Web site, for instance, keywords would include “create a Web site,” “free Web sites,” “Web site design,” and so on. Before you begin writing your article, write down all the words you might use to search for an article on your topic. The first words that come to your mind are probably the strongest keywords to use in your article.
Now, the trick is to learn how to apply keywords effectively so they actually help your article and increase the chances of people finding your words on the Web. The answer is keyword optimization, and the process is easy once you get the hang of online writing. If you have a list of keywords to use, you have the key to great online article writing.
You may have a list of keywords for your article, but the search engines aren’t aware of that list. Search engines know how to very quickly comb your content, picking out similar words as people online seek them out. For the words in your articles to really be considered keywords by the search engines and not just by you, you must repeat them at least twice within you article. Keywords shouldn’t appear back-to-back either, but in separate sentences and paragraphs so you read them throughout the article.
How often and where your words appear is called "keyword density." To achieve good keyword density in your articles, make sure your main words and phrases appear at least twice in every paragraph. Other, supporting keywords should appear at least once per paragraph. Don’t drown your articles in keywords, either; having a word appear six or seven times in a paragraph is overkill (and in most cases, bad writing).
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