How to Write an SEO Article – Part 2

In part one of How To Write An SEO Article, we looked at how important it is to get the basics of an SEO article correct from the start. We looked at the importance of writing relevant content to the user and not the search engine, and we also looked at the research that goes into keywords and keyphrases that are to be integrated into the article.

Nothing that was described in part one should be considered difficult by anyone. If it is, please email me individually, making sure to swallow a pinch of salt before you do.

In part two of How To Write An SEO Article, I’m going to take everything we have learned in part one and apply it to the article that needs to be written. I’ll also cover that slightly boring, but all-important, ‘techy bit’.

Using Keywords and Keyphrases

Okay, so you have your keywords either by your own intuition or from a client. Then what?

Well, the first step is to go back to step one, and remind yourself what the actual article that is going to be so helpful and informative to the reader, is all about. Then, based on this remit, write the article, and along the way, include the keywords and keyphrases among the text in as natural and logical a manner as possible.

It may be you can build the article around the keywords themselves, but the most important thing is not to over use them. It makes the article appear like an attempt at SEO article writing gone mad. Also, it won’t read well and a reader will give up before he gets half way through.

If you are struggling to find suitable places for the keywords, never force it into the text just so you can include it. If it doesn’t flow with the natural rhythm of the piece, leave it out or re-write the text. If you still find it impossible to use it elsewhere in the piece, wipe the slate clean and re-write the article from an entirely new angle.

Obviously, if you are writing to the demands of a client who has given you a difficult remit with awkward keywords, this rule may have to be bent a little, but being a creative freelance writer means being able to adapt to situations like this, so trust yourself and go with the flow.

Point of Note #1: they wouldn’t need someone to do it for them, if they could do it themselves.

Point of Note #2: remember you’re the expert, so write the article for the reader, not the algorithm.

Where possible (although this may not be part of your remit), try to include one of the keyphrases in the headline, and if possible, the sub-headline. This is a neat way of taking the pressure off the article content, while keeping the keywords at the front of the search engine algorithm results when it comes around.

Hypertext Links

Creating hypertext links that are embedded within the content of an article, is a great way of increasing general interest, as well as allowing a higher chance of search engine spiders being able to reach it.

Too many hypertext links within your text will only annoy readers, though, so creating links to every keyword is not recommended. Linking to other interesting articles or websites from other words or phrases, that may not be specific to the remit given to you, may help to build a higher percentage of user interest, as well as boost the SEO ranking of the page the article is published on.

For example, here is a section from an SEO article for the music industry I recently wrote:

“Bidding for concert tickets from an unknown Internet source, is not a good way of buying your all important seats to see Britney Spears.”

The keyphrase in this article is ‘concert tickets’ and as you can see, has been used within the article’s context. However, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that more searches are run for the phrase ‘Britney Spears’ than for ‘concert tickets,’ therefore, not only is it mentioned in the same paragraph, but there is also a hypertext link included which links to her official site.

Having both phrases, ‘concert tickets’ and ‘Britney Spears,’ alongside each other, is quite clearly a potent combination for anyone concerned who might want to run an Internet search like it; Britney fans, music fans, memorabilia collectors, ticket touts, etc.

Therefore, this sentence when published, will look like this:

“Bidding for concert tickets from an unknown Internet source, is not a good way of buying your all important seats to see Britney Spears.”

Keyword Density

Keyword density is a term often used in the context of SEO, and is often stressed as being a vital component of every SEO article writer’s armoury. The phrase came into being because keywords, which provide the foundation on which SEO copywriting is based, led many people to conclude that the more keywords included in a SEO article, the higher chance there is of that web page being ranked during a search. Scientific formulae were developed to try and prove this, and thus an industry was born.

Unfortunately, in this writer’s experience, this is almost always complete rubbish.

Generally, one will find that no matter how many times the phrase ‘Britney Spears,’ is used in an article, when published, it simply will not shoot into the top ten in Google’s search ranking.

Good keyword usage is supported not by the amount of times it is used in a web article, but by the combinations of other relevant keywords it sits beside, as in the example given earlier of ‘Britney Spears’ and ‘concert tickets.’ Each individual, but related keyword, helps narrow the search down even further.

However, even with the most advanced SEO keyword placement strategies in place, there is still one remaining factor that is vital to help support the use of keywords and keyphrases: web page construction.

Which takes me neatly onto the ‘techy bit’.

Web Page Optimisation (The ‘Techy Bit’)

As a freelance writer this section isn’t really required, but I though it wouldn’t hurt to come to a better understanding of the different ways that keywords and SEO can be applied, to increase the page rank of a website.

Within the construction of a simple HTML web page, is a section at the top called the Header. Within this section there are various meta tags, the most important of which is the Title tag, and the Meta description tag.

Search engine spiders read the meta data within a webpage, and are attracted to those sites which have keywords present early on. Search engine spiders and web browsers read HTML code from top to bottom (meta data then content), so what comes first gets read first – and is therefore output first.

It is therefore very important for good web page optimisation to occur, that an emphasis be placed on the usage of keywords in the Title tags and Meta tags, and to have the most important ones placed near the beginning.

For example, here is an extract of HTML data taken from a website that might have published the article on Britney Spears concert tickets:

<html>
<head>
<title>Britney Spears Concert Tickets</title>
<meta name="Keywords" content="Britney Spears, concert tickets, Britney on tour, gigs, stadium tour, Toxic, Oops I Did It Again”>
</head>
<body>
Bidding for <b>concert tickets</b> from an unknown Internet source, is not a good way of buying your all important seats to see <a href=”http://www.britneyspears.com”>Britney Spears</a>
…..etc.
</body>
</html>

As you can see, the most important keyphrases were used in the web page title, as well as at the front of the meta keywords line. And in the content we had the combination of keywords and keyphrases, including a logical hypertext link to what happens to be a very popular website on the Internet, for whatever reason.

And that, in a nutshell, is about all you need to know to get started writing SEO articles.