EzSEO Newsletter # 28
Andy Williams ez SEO
ezseonews.com
Hello again. I hope you had a good week. Last week we took a look at a real example of how one webmaster turned some unique content she owned into a "series of articles" on her web site and in doing so, not only increased traffic from the free search engines, but also increased the sales of her products, and convinced her visitors that she was an expert in her field. This week we carry on with out mini-series on articles by looking at different types of articles you can use on your site and an action plan for adding articles.
OK, on with the newsletter, because we have loads to cover.
This week:
1. What are articles?
2. The best articles ever written
3. The Article Action Plan
4. Final thought
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1. What are articles?
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Since I am encouraging you to add articles to your web site, I probably should define what I think an article is. I see an article as simply "content focused on a certain topic". We mentioned a definition for the word Content in newsletter #26 - "Words organized into sentences, and sentences organized into paragraphs".
So an article is a few paragraphs written about a certain topic. How difficult can that be? With Wordtracker or your favorite keyword research tool, you can type in the topic and get back a whole bunch of related phrases you can use and target in your article.
Articles on your web site can be useful for a number of reasons:
a) By linking to your main sales pages from each article you write, you can not only direct your visitors to your money-generating web pages, but you can also guide the search engine robots to important pages. Don't underestimate the value of this second point. As the search engine spiders follow the link from article page to sales page, they take with them the information carried in the link text and the general topic of the article page itself. If it finds both pages to be similar in topic, your page should rank better in the search engines. In addition, don't forget that your article will actually pass on PR to the main sales page. This really is a win-win situation.
b) Articles can be written around certain popular keyword phrases and optimized to rank well in the search engines. Each article then becomes a free traffic generator. The article is content which the search engines love, and that content is focused on one or two popular keyword phrases which are relevant to the searchers query, so your article should rank well in the search results. Once you start getting the free traffic, your visitors are funneled to your main sales pages by your careful use of links, and hopefully you make a sale.
c) Article can pre-sell a product to an audience (by basically being a sales pages). Perhaps the best example of a pre-selling article is a typical product review. These reviews usually talk about the labor-saving features of the product, or how the product makes your life easier, or removes pain from your life. You get the idea. The best eBook I have seen on the topic of pre-selling is Ken Evoy's "Make Your Site Sell". For those of you who read Sean Burn's excellent newsletter, go back and read his article on pre-selling in issue #48. For those who are not subscribed to his newsletter, why not? Go over to http://www.webmastersreference.com and do it.
Now we are building up a picture of how articles can help us get more traffic and convert that traffic into buyers - in much the same way that Rosana did in last weeks newsletter.
Articles hold the key to bigger better sites that the search engines will love for many years to come. Articles hold the key to more traffic from highly targeted visitors. Articles hold the key to bigger profits.
Imagine the power of articles on your own site. Imagine the impact they could have to your rankings and profits if the articles were written with the skill of an accomplished web copy writer yet using the knowledge of an SEO expert to not only optimize the pages, but to integrate them into your site in a way that optimizes your overall site structure. Wow, now that is a goal to strive for.
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2. The best articles ever written
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The Best Articles Ever Written is a collection of 16 articles on various aspects of working online compiled by Patric Chan.
Why not go through these 16 articles and see what makes them special. I don't agree that they are the best articles ever written, but they are successful articles. On top of that, at the beginning of the book Patric says:
"You have the rights to copy each of the articles you like individually to use for your web site or ezine but the article must not be modified and the signature MUST remain as it is."
How's that for value? 16 top quality content articles you can add to your web site for nothing.
You can download this 69 page eBook for free from:
http://ezseonews.com/downloads/best-articles-ever-witten.zip
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3. The Article Action Plan
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OK, we need to put a plan together to help organize ourselves and start adding articles to our site. Here is a simple plan:
1. Research Keywords relevant to your web site.
2. Organize keywords into groups of 2 or 3. One keyword phrase should be the primary (most important) keyword, the other couple should be complimentary keywords.
3. Write an article based on those keywords and optimized for the search engines.
4. Insert the article into a template you have designed for your site.
5. Put links to important page(s) of your site on the article page.
6. Put a link to the article page from your sitemap (or other page that is in the search engines).
7. Go back and repeat steps 3 - 6 until you have written articles for all of your keyword groups.
8. Go back to step 1.
Note that this plan is assuming that you will write the articles for yourself. When you write your own articles (or pay someone to write them for you), you can:
- Decide on which keywords to target
- Include the keywords in the right places on your web page to optimize the pages properly
- Place your affiliate links throughout the article if appropriate increasing your chances of a sale.
- Place links in the article body to important pages of your site to increase the traffic to those pages (as well as improve search engine rankings)
Looking at the plan above, you should have a good idea of how to carry out steps 1 & 2. If in doubt, download my free guide to Niche Keyword Research.
For step 3 you need two things. You need to know the basics of web page optimization, and you need to know how to write articles.
The SEO bit is easy if you have been reading this newsletter for long enough. If you need a good course on SEO, try "Battle for the Top 10" available from my web site.
To write good articles I recommend learning the art of writing sales copy for the web. Ever since reading "WEB COPY THAT SELLS: The Secret to Creating a Profitable Web site" by Maria Veloso I have promoted the book without any reservations, believing it to be the best resource available for anyone wishing to write sales copy on the web. However, her book should be coming out soon in the shops (and cheaper than the eBook version), so if you can wait for it to hit the bookshops, I recommend you do. If you want it now, visit http://ezseonews.com/mv .
If you have not got any extra cash to spend, why not read "My Easy 10 step formula for creating winning sales letters" by Martin Franzen found in the "Best Articles..." eBook http://ezseonews.com/downloads/best-articles-ever-witten.zip. His article is a good primer for writing sales copy. It may not go into the depth of Maria's masterpiece, but it will certainly get you thinking about how you should write your own articles.
Step 4 should be easy enough if you know how to use your HTML editor.
Step 5 is also easy enough once you have decided which pages (that are relevant to the article) you want to give a traffic & ranking boost to.
Step 6 is also easy. All sites should have a sitemap and by using carful linking strategies, you not only get your article indexed in the search engines, you also give your article pages a ranking boost. If you are uncertain how to create a sitemap, or how to link to your web site pages from your sitemap for maximum impact, please read my free Report "Sitemaps - The Missing Link of Search Engine Optimization"
By adding an article a day, you could have 30 articles a month added to your site.
In next weeks newsletter I will take you through the process I mentally go through when writing an article. Starting with just my keywords I will talk you through writing an article from start to finish, and then finally show you how to add a headline (yes, that's right. I add the headline last, and so should you).
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4. Final thought
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"I have a Vision" by John Delavera (found in the "Best Articles Ever Written" eBook) was written before John was a well-known marketer. John is now very well respected. Why not read his article and then write your own "vision". Keep it by your computer, laminate it and put it next to your bed. Make a difference in your life and do rather than think about doing.
If you have any comments, please feel free to e-mail me at:
[REMOVED - USE CONTACT US LINK]
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