How to Write Articles for More Traffic

When it comes to getting more traffic to your website (i.e. Search Engine Optimization), there are two important factors. First, a site that gets a lot of links back to it will rank high. Second, on-site optimization, meaning the correct use of keywords in the title and article, is also important. That’s what we’re going to talk about today.

Unfortunately, most so-called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts don’t understand the importance of on-site optimization. Many are concerned only with building links back to your site.

It still amazes me how other “seo experts” out there are still completely missing the boat on onsite optimization.  There are link builders out there calling themselves “seo experts”.

One SEO expert recently asked me to look at one of his niche websites as he wasn’t ranking even in the top 100.  I was astounded at how horribly optimized the site was.  It was actually embarrassing to see how poorly the site was setup.

So even though he is charging a lot of money for ‘seo services’ to build backlinks, he can’t even optimize his own site which means he can’t even figure out why his own clients sites are getting stuck.

Seriously.

Don’t just trust anyone just because they say they do “SEO”, because to a lot of people that merely equates to link building and they couldn’t optimize a website to save their life, or make a sale for that matter.

Now let’s talk about on-site optimization. That simply means what you do when you put content on your website and make little tweaks to the headline and content so that it shows up in the top rankings for Google Searches. This is a big part of Search Engine Optimization.

If I’m trying to write a super optimized post that I want ranking Top 3 in Google I follow this format

1) Keyword in the title of the post

Keep the keyword in the beginning of the title and try to keep the density of the keyword in the title high.  Really long titles that grab attention don’t necessary rank well in the search engines for competitive keywords.

To rank high really fast just make the keyword the title.

Most would argue that your click through ratio will be very low, BUT unless you are ranking in the top 3 you don’t need to worry much about click through ratio, so I focus on getting the ranking first and then modifying the title second.

2) Use the keyword in the first sentence.

Google has to score what an article is about by a fairly simple algorithm.

If you were going to speak to someone about a topic, wouldn’t it be normal to mention the topic in your first sentence?  That’s sort of how the search engine looks at it.

If it sees the same word in the title and the first sentence it knows there is some importance there.  An strong opening statement is most likely going to introduce what something is about so put your keyword in the first sentence.

3) I try to use the keyword every 100-150 words…

…but to keep from sounding robotic use variations of the keyword that would sound natural, the good think about this is you will pick up long tails at the same time.  If my keyword is ‘bodyweight exercises’ I wouldn’t just keep repeating ‘bodyweight exercises’ over and over.

I would look to see what are the other long tails searched around that keyword.  To quickly find out just open up the Google search bar and start typing in your keyword, the Google suggest will start to suggest keywords.

It’s a really good idea to put these keywords into your articles because chances are many people will click on the long tail suggestion that Google is giving to them.

I would even go as far as creating 1 article per suggested keyword and linking them together.  Going back to the keyword ‘bodyweight exercises’ I might write a phrase about ‘bodyweight exercises for women’ or ‘bodyweight exercises for strength’ or ‘bodyweight exercises for chest’ – the point is, you can make your post sound much more natural, AND pick up long tail search phrases.

To take it 1 step farther, link the long tail keyword like ‘bodyweight exercises for strength’ to it’s own article titled ‘bodyweight exercises for strength’ – this strategy is a knock-out punch when creating a niche site.

It’s what Google wants to see, and it provides a great user experience by having 1 article link to other relevant articles.

The best example is Wikipedia.  That site is starting to rank #1 for just about any word you can think of just because the site has the biggest internal linking network in the world. I started paying a lot of attention to Wikipedia because everything I searched in Google seemed to have a Wikipedia entry in the top 3.

If you want to check your keyword density there is a really useful SEO plugin that I use all day long to analyze competitors webpages

— http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/

You can use this plugin to check keyword density, meta tags, keywords, backlinks, page rank, whois, etc.  It is a very handy tool for SEO reconnaissance as you plan to beat your competitors.

That’s enough for today.

I’ll be back with Part 2 of this plan tomorrow.

[Ed. Note: Rick Porter is the one of the best Search Engine Optimization experts in the world and works for the top Internet Marketers in the world today, in addition to helping major corporations increase website traffic. You can read more of Rick Porter’s step-by-step guidelines to getting more traffic on the Internet Independence website here.]