Article Question..

If you want to get serious about article marketing, you should forget about using articles as a means to get backlinks. Instead, you want to think about how you can get high quality content onto sites that already have targeted traffic for your niche.

Hi Dan,

I do agree with danr62, however they can still be a good source of backlinks as well.

As for keyword optimising your articles, the general rule of thumb is to use your main keyword between 1 and 3%, in other words, you can use your main keyword or phrase 3 times in a 400 word article.

As for your secondary keywords, you should use each once in your article.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for your input guys, it is very much appreciated. In regards to getting the content to places that contain my target audience, what sort of methods should I be looking at for that? I mean I am already pretty active with targeting my niche, i do this through the use of forums, facebook groups, twitter etc. I just need that killer avenue thats going to help me in both getting targeted traffic to my site as well as improving my SERP.

Ranking takes the p**s sometimes lool

Once again thanks for your responses

Dan

I think you're confusing article directory marketing with article syndication where you distribute an article across a select network of high quality and relevant websites, blogs, etc.

The backlink you get from an article directory will indeed count towards link building, but not very effectively. Your aim in submitting an article to a directory should not be to get a backlink, as the quality of that link is only slightly better than worthless. Your aim should be to encourage publishers who visit the directory to pick up your article and republish it on their sites. That can mean quality traffic and a backlink worth having.

As for keyword research, yes, you can make this a consideration for every article to some degree if you want, but don't go overboard. Once you start manipulating your article to get a certain keyword density, 2%, 3%, 5% or greater, for example, you've lost it.

Write naturally for real people. The people who read it will appreciate it more, and - surprise, surprise - the search engines will also appreciate it more.

Your statement, "I'm personally not one for spinning articles," is like a breath of fresh air. With that attitude, there is definitely hope for you.

Spinning an article achieves nothing positive. It never did and it never will. It is pure anathema to the noble art of writing. It spreads confusion where there was clarity; senselessness where there was understanding; and its only noteworthy achievement is to line the pockets of those who peddle the software.

Good luck!

John.

Writing for the same keyword over and over again can make the content you produce become stale and somewhat redundant. Using variations of your keyword and phrases as well as writing about subjects your target audience is attracted to will help to have your content picked up by others.

Also. using a small amount of imagination to find related niches where you can draw new visitors, who many interested, allows you to diversify your market and let your creativity grow. Search for those higher quality sites and offer quality content to the publishers and webmasters and syndicate your own writing instead of letting an article directory do it for you.

If you had to choose between writing and promoting to others, I suggest hiring a writer to produce higher quality content and you spend your time promoting it to higher value web properties. In this way you have great content to share that a webmaster can feel confident sharing with his audience.

David

keyword research is important in aything internet related as the whole basis of a search engine uses keyword research especially in the title,but I would do my research all in one go for each niche and use those keywords as a basic for that niches articles.
Regards
vivi62

Obviously keyword density is important but not critical. The quality of the content is more important. I'd rather pay a lot for a great article that is engaging for the reader. It will pay off way more in quality back links by publishers linking to the article because of its quality.

For keyword research and article marketing, I would go with any keyword with any search volume. Something that helps your readers and also entices publishers to syndicate your articles.

The way I think of keywords is not to plug a base term into a tool but to think of your readers. What would they go to a search engine and type in.

Here's an example.

Say I was looking to get into the chicken coops niche. Maybe wanting to build one. I know nothing about it. So I think...

What's the best size for a chicken coop?

I don't even know if there is such a thing. But I took that and went over to Google keyword tool, tweaked it a bit and found that

"chicken coop sizes"

gets 28 searches a month.

I think, because it has such a low search count a lot of folks aren't targeting the phrase. So the competition is next to none.

So that's a keyword phrase, (if I was in that niche) that I would write an article on.

To me it's about having a lot of articles. So if I have 100 of those type of keywords. That could be 28 x 100 searches = 2800 people searching these phrases and finding your content, because you have lots of articles.

Granted it takes a lot of writing, but it's what someone is searching for. You aren't writing to the masses. You're finding a small group of people and putting your information in front of them.

Another thing with that keyword phrase, "chicken coop sizes", is that the niche itself is big in competition. Yet there's not many sites actually catering to that particular search. So publishers finding that in an article directory will either do one of 2 things.

Create a new blog post to target the phrase or alternatively take the easier option (hopefully) and that's to syndicate your article that is already sitting in front of them.

That gets your article with a little search volume onto a site with perhaps an existing group of people reading the content. On an email list etc, and getting more people to find and read your article.

As for the density. I usually try to get it around 1%. That isn't the case all the time though as I don't interfere with the flow of the content just to reach a certain keyword density.

As long as I have it in my article title somewhere, within the first and last paragraph as well as once or twice throughout the content, I'll submit it.

The only thing with that is, (as you'll see here) I tend to write a lot. So the higher the word count goes, the lower the density becomes. So going back through the article just to sprinkle in the target keyword phrase, in my opinion, can reduce how the content reads.

As long as it reads OK to folks finding it, I'm happy with it. But for keywords, like the one mentioned, the competition isn't heavy, so keyword density isn't too much of an issue.

Hope that helps and best of luck with your articles.

Robbie

Does anyone know the likely thought process that a person would use when searching an article syndication service for content?

Dan, FWIW, here's my take.

I do keyword research, but I'm not worrying about number of searches or competing pages or all those other "greater than, less than" numbers floating around. I also don't run around snapping up "exact match" domains, so maybe that has something to do with it, too.

What I want to learn from my keyword research is the language my target audience (actually two of them - readers and publishers, but that's another discussion). How do they phrase questions? What kind of general terms do they start from? I do a lot of my 'keyword research' on forums and other places where people interact.

I'm also much more concerned with flow and content than keyword density. Get the former right, and the latter usually takes care of itself.

Alston, Alexa is right, at least in my case. When I'm looking for new content, I'm not looking to a service because most of them cater to "SEO writers" looking for backlinks and autobloggers looking for automated content that is keyword optimized.

I go to directories, usually starting at EZA. I'm really looking to kill two birds with one stone when I do. I'm looking for content, yes, but I'm also looking for reliable content providers. I have content areas where I start my search with a keyword and a writer's name to see if my favorites have anything on the subject.

Everyone has his own preferences for various things.