One of the most effective off-page SEO activities is writing articles and publishing. However, don’t ruin a great opportunity by writing and publishing garbage articles.
So, what’s the benefit of writing a quality article?
As you may know, article writing and publishing results in a link or two to a website. Consequently, many articles are written strictly for the link and not for the quality.
In our view this is a major mistake and a nearsighted approach to off-page SEO.
Article writing should be approached as if the article is representing your website or blog. Why? Well, simply because it does represent your website or blog.
A published article is not only pre-selling you, your business, and your site, but it represents you, your business and your site. Don’t alienate visitors and prospective customers with poorly written articles.
How do you write an article that matters?
1. Simple test for determining whether an article is good enough for publishing
Ask yourself: Would I put this article on my website? If not, then why would you publish it elsewhere?
2. An article must have a central point
The most important component to writing an article that matters is having a central point. If you have 2 to 3 points to make that is good as well. More than that, write another article.
A central point is something in the article that resonates with the reader. It:
- informs,
- entertains,
- opines,
- provokes thought,
- sets out examples, and/or
- educates.
I call this the meat and potatoes of an article.
It’s good to start with an introduction, but many articles that are poorly written then continue with fluff and may throw out some random or vague point, but fail to cement that point with supporting information, opinions, or facts. The vague point reads as an after thought. Then the article carries on with fluff in order to fill out 300 words that qualify it for publishing with an article directory.
Writing an article that matters requires thinking. Thinking about the central point, and then thinking about the supporting elements of the central point.
3. Example of bad article writing
Intro: … blah, blah, blah.
Body: SEO is great for a business website. Every business website should be optimized for traffic. More traffic equals more customers which is good for business. If you don’t do SEO as a business owner you are missing out on a great opportunity.
Conclusion: … blah, blah, blah.
The problem with this is the same obvious point is made over and over again. Everyone knows SEO is beneficial. There’s no central point such as how to get SEO, or examples of how SEO increases the number of visitors, etc.
4. Example of good article writing
Intro: … blah, blah, blah.
Body: SEO is something every business website must have in order for the website to be effective. The trouble is many business owners don’t know how to do SEO effectively. Great website SEO requires both on-site (aka on-page SEO) and off-site (aka off-page) efforts. Let me explain the difference of on-site and off-site SEO.
On-page SEO is … The primary on-page SEO activities for business websites are …
Off-page SEO is … The primary off-page SEO activities for business websites are …
Conclusion: … blah, blah, blah
A good article would then fill in that information. As you can see the reader of the good article example would learn the difference between on-page and off-page SEO.
5. Obvious elements of good article writing
I’m not going to expand on the following, because they’re obvious (and because I’ve already made my central point for this article); yet the following are always good reminders:
- Spell check;
- Short paragraphs;
- Consistency – if writing in the first person, stay in the first person, etc.
- Use bullet points and/or numbered paragraphs.
- Use a large enough font.
- Write gripping headlines (books have been written on this topic alone. The trouble is writing gripping titles, but including important keywords).
- Use plenty of headings (this is good for SEO as well. Notice I have 9 headings alone in this relatively short article).
- Edit at least once (this is my biggest weakness, but it’s important). Sometimes I walk away from an article and then edit it for a fresher perspective.
- Outlining isn’t necessary unless it’s a long article or article series. Sometimes I outline, other times I just start writing and let the format and structure develop.
My secondary point in this article about writing articles is …
if you outsource your article writing, you get what you pay for. I’ve paid $10 and I’ve paid $100. The $100 articles are far superior; the $10 articles are just a mishmash of sentences that say the same thing over and over.
That said I write most of my own articles, but sometimes do pay for editing. Another set of eyes is always good for an article. If you aren’t good at writing or don’t like it, pay the extra amount for quality articles.
Take away point about article writing and publishing
When you publish an article on an article directory or elsewhere, ask whether you would want that article in your website. If not, then don’t publish it elsewhere.
If you don’t think people read your articles? Guess again. Publish an article on EzineArticles and check out the numbers. The first article I published on EzineArticles I couldn’t believe the number of views. Because it was a quality article, I also received plenty of click-throughs into my site.
At the end of the day you are better off to write and publish 5 quality articles than 10 lousy articles. You may not get as many links to your site publishing fewer articles, but the readers of the quality articles will far more likely click into your site.
Those click-throughs into your site are valuable because they already trust you a little bit; your article pre-sold them. That’s the best traffic to your site you can expect.
Swordfish SEO offers quality content writing services. In fact our focus in our SEO services is off-site SEO through quality article writing and publishing.