EzSEO Newsletter # 29
Andy Williams ez SEO
ezseonews.com
Hi AllAs promised, this week I will take you through the process I use when writing an article from start to finish.
This week:
1. How to write an article.
2. Quick Reference summary.
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1. How to write an article.
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I am going to assume that you actually have a topic you want to write about. Whether it is a product you want to review, or just an article relevant to your site topic, the process is the same.
Your article must be of value to your website or it is not worth writing. To be of value the article must:
* be on a topic related to your website.
* be found in the search engines for a variety of terms that people are actually looking for.
* be interesting and informative to your visitor.
* increase your sites value (in terms of increased income, more traffic or whatever your goal is for your site).
OK, lets go through the process.
a) Target profitable keywords
The first step in writing any article is to find a set of keywords to work to. These keywords must be phrases that people are searching for related to the article you are going to write. You all know where I am going with this ;o)
Open up your keyword research tool of choice and search for profitable keywords related to the topic of your proposed article. I will take a topic that I know nothing about (baby nursery themes) just to demonstrate how easy it is to create an article on just about anything. Typing baby nursery into Wordtracker gives me a lot of keyword phrases related to my topic. After filtering my list, I am left with:
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KEI Count 24Hours Competition Keyword
288.235 280 81 272 baby nursery themes
83.377 118 34 167 baby nursery ideas
52.083 150 43 432 decorating baby nursery
23.556 354 102 5320 baby nursery furniture
17.405 177 51 1800 baby bedding nursery
1.334 581 167 253000 baby nursery
0.136 35 10 8990 baby nursery bedding
These phrases are made up of the following unique keywords:
baby
bedding
decorating
furniture
ideas
nursery
themes
Let's have a quick look at the phrases. The last two don't appear to be very profitable (based on the KEI value). However "baby nursery" is the overall topic of my article so must be included, and "baby nursery bedding" can be included in my article without much extra effort and hopefully bring in a few extra visitors. My advice when choosing keywords for articles is not to ignore keywords that will only bring you an extra 2 or 3 visitors a day. These make ideal secondary keywords to sprinkle into your article to maximize exposure on the search engines. Articles should be written to capture traffic for a variety of related phrases.
From the list, I have selected "baby nursery themes" as my main (or primary) keyword phrase to target in my article. All other phrases will be secondary phrases that will be sprinkled into my article, either as complete phrases, or more likely by using only the unique words from those phrases (which is why I have listed the unique keywords together with my phrases).
Including only the unique keywords instead of complete phrases ensures that you don't over-use certain phrase (like baby nursery which is found in every one of my keyword phrases) which could alert the search engine spam filters.
OK I have a list of phrases, what next?
b) What is someone who searches for "baby nursery themes" really looking for?
This next part of the article writing process is critical. You need to put yourself in the shoes of the visitors and decide what you think someone is really looking for if they type in your main phrase at the search engines. After all, it is no point ranking #1 at Google for "baby nursery themes" if your page isn't of interest to most of your visitors.
Make a list of anything you can think of that you believe is the motivation behind such a search, or that will be of interest to someone who is searching for the term. If possible, try to include your unique keywords in the ideas you come up with.
Here are my first thoughts about a visitor who types in "baby nursery themes" at Google:
* they are having a "baby".
* new parents don't have training to be parents (it is something they learn as they go along) and often need a lot of help in deciding what to buy.
* this person wants "ideas" on "decorating" a "nursery".
* nurseries are usually based on a "theme" often using characters from children's TV. As new parents, most wont know much about children's TV so will find choosing a theme difficult. They need advice.
* they probably need advice on what goes in a nursery.
* a "nursery" needs "furniture" and a range of baby products like bedding, nappies, changing pad etc. A checklist would be useful.
* they will be interested in lots of topics related to babies.
This is a simple list of ideas that I came up with in a couple of minutes. Notice I tried to include my keywords in the ideas (placed in quotes to highlight them). This makes it so much easier to put my keywords into the article naturally when I come to write the article.
c) Decide on a writing style.
Articles should always be informative, but can be written in a number of different style. For example, you could write the article as a story about our own personal experiences.
e.g. "When my wife was 6 moths pregnant we decided it was time to turn our spare room into a nursery. Trying to decide on a baby nursery theme was a real challenge since we still didn't know the sex of the baby......." and so on.
This method makes the reader believe that you have been through their situation and can offer valuable help based on experience. I also believe that this method is a little easier to write as you tend to get carried away with the story aspect and can easily fit in your keywords without the article seeming forced or padded with keyword phrases.
Alternatively the article can be purely informational without the personal touch of the above style.
e.g. "Having a baby is one of the most wonderful experiences a young couple go through. However, a baby is a lot of work which usually starts months before it is born when the spare room needs to be turned into a nursery...."
Decide on the style you want to use to write your article.
d) Flesh out your initial ideas.
Remember that much of the information you need in order to write an informative article is available on the Internet. If you are promoting a product, read the merchants page for that product. Search Google using your chosen keywords. Don't think that you don't know enough about a topic to write an article on it. If you have an Internet connection, you have a whole library at your fingertips.
This stage of article writing is probably the most daunting for anyone new to writing articles. However, it is really easy. Go through the points you wrote in second stage of the article writing process and try to put them into an order that makes sense to you. This will be the blueprint for your article.
When you are happy with the order, take each idea in turn and write a small paragraph about that idea. Try it. It really is that simple.
Things to bear in mind while writing your article:
* Include your primary keyword a couple of time in the first paragraph of your article .and then once or twice further down the article.
* Sprinkle in your secondary phrase, either the complete phrase, or just the unique keywords that make up the phrase. If you include the complete phrase, be aware that your article can start to have a very high density of certain phrases (like baby nursery in this example).
* Try to make your article solve your visitors problem. Remember that your visitor searched for the phrase at Google to solve a problem they had. They needed ideas or advice. Solve that problem for them in your article. Take the "pain" out of their situation by telling them what they need to know. In my article for example, I would inform them about what a nursery needs (a checklist?), give them ideas on various themes available (from my affiliate merchants of course) and direct them to the best online resources for buying what they need (again to my affiliate merchants).
The process of fleshing out your ideas into an article is a little bit like a game. You have certain points to cover and your job is to make one point flow into the next in an easy to read manner, all the time working in your keywords.
e) Call to action
Your article has a function other than to get visitors to your web site. You want to make money from that visitor if possible, so you need to be funneling those visitors to another web page (either on your site, or via an affiliate link to a merchants site). The "call to action" step of article writing is a reminder to you that you need to tell your visitor what you want them to do. Here are two examples of calls to action I could use in my baby nursery article:
"Visit our buyers guide to find reputable online suppliers for your baby nursery themes"
"Deciding on a baby nursery theme is only one task that new parents must do. Visit our "New Baby Checklist" page and make sure you are prepared for your new arrival".
Both of these tell your visitor what you want them to do. This is an important part of the article since it is unlikely you are writing it purely for informational value. Leave your visitor in no doubt what they should do next.
It might be that you are not promoting a particular product in your article and you are writing the article primarily to capture web traffic (like James Martell does). At first glance, these articles appear to be purely informational. However, look again at one of Martell's sites and study his article pages. Each article is designed to do well for keyword phrases he has decided are important and relevant to the products he is selling. Each article "promotes" his own money-making pages (Martell calls them product pages).
f) Create a headline
You might be wondering why I left the headline until last. My reasoning is simple:
Until you have written the article, you are not fully aware of the benefits of what you are pre-selling. Added to this the fact that the headline is used by your visitor to see if the rest of the page is worth reading. If the headline does not capture the interest of the visitor, if it does not tell the visitor that this page holds the information they are looking for, they will click the back button and find another page from the search results. You will lose your visitor and any hope of making money from them,
The headline has to be grab the attention of your visitor and inform them that your article will give them the information they need to solve whatever problem caused them to search at Google in the first place.
Take a look at your initial ideas, and read your article. What is the single most important benefit of what you are pre-selling to your visitor? For my article, it is probably that it gives the visitor ideas for their nursery. Let's take this and expand a little:
Note: the ideas you get when planning your headline should reflect what is written in your article.
Ideas for a nursery theme -> things they need to buy -> checklist -> make sure they are prepared for parenthood -> if not prepared, then what?.
OK, here we have it. This train of thought has brought me to a point where I can really capture the visitors attention. The idea that if they are not prepared, they or the baby might suffer in some way. Tugging at the heartstrings is the best way to make your headline work for you.
How about this as a headline for my article:
"Exciting baby nursery themes ideas - a checklist for a safe and enjoyable journey into parenthood."
This should tell my visitor that I am going to give them ideas for their nursery, tell them exactly what they need for their nursery, and that their new child will be safe as a result of following my advice. It includes my main keyword phrase near the beginning of the sentence and has the warm glow feeling associated with the thoughts and hopes of every new parent "an enjoyable journey into parenthood".
OK, this may not be the best headline ever, but I am happy with it. I think it captures the essence of my article, while informing my visitor that it contains the information they are looking for.
Stick your headline at the top of your article and you are finished.
NOTE: your headline should always include your main keyword phrase (to help it rank well in the search engine) and if possible, try to fit in secondary keywords you think are important.
If you want more ideas or help writing your headline, read the article by Willie Crawford in the free eBook I mentioned last week:
http://ezseonews.com/downloads/best-articles-ever-witten.zip
The subject of writing headlines reminds me of a software title I heard about a long time ago - Headline Creator Pro. You may have come across this title at one time or another. Personally I did not like it much, but it does give you ideas for creating your headlines based on some of the most successful headlines of all time. The great news is that you can get it for free if you bought the Free Software Forever package I mentioned a few newsletters ago (remember I talked about cloaking links and some link cloakers that came in this free software forever package?). Headline Creator Pro is included in the package.
Before we finish this newsletter, I thought it might be of some use to you if I summarize the main points of article writing as I see it. A quick reference guide if you like, so here it is:
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2. Quick Reference summary.
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1. Keyword Research - find related phrases.
2. Organize your keywords into a primary and some secondary phrases.
3. Decide on a writing style.
4. Decide what your visitor is really looking for.
5. Flesh out your points.
6. Call to action.
7. Create a headline.
That is it for another week. I hope you enjoyed this issue of the mini-series on Articles.
Next week we will continue with the series...
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