Article writing

[Find Accountants]

Can anyone give any tips on how to write articles?

What could a person write which would be interesting enough for other's to read?

For example, my web-site is targeting people who are trying to find an accountant, hence I need to get ranked for key phrases like accountants blackburn, but what could be interesting enough to target this particular key phrase?

Any tips would be helpful.

Thanks in advance.

[MichaelWall]

Rather than search the internet and hacking an article together from 5 to 10 other sources like I see done so much, I tend to write articles based on my own experiences.

This allows me to add a bit more detail that some fluffly articles I read so often.

[lishiguang]

Put yourself into it and write from your readers' perspective is what I would do.

[Find Accountants]

Thanks for your helps guys. I've had a few ideas so am going to put them into practice. I guess if I'm writing from an SEO perspective, it doesn't matter what the article is about, as long as it mentions the key phrase to traget.

Now my next question is, how many times should I mention the key phrase in the article & how many times should there be a link from the body of the article to my web-site?

Also, I have set up a blog for my site (but it is external & by wordpress), so would it be best to have the articles on my blog aswell & have links from the external articles pointing to the articles on the blog & then have the links from the articles in the blog, pointing to my site?

[MichaelWall]

Rather than write articles for the sake of it, I would write good quality informative articles when you have something to say.

The more effort you put into an article the better. The better the content the more people will read and link back to it and refer to it.

The better quality the article the more you'll be seen as an authority on your subject matter.

I would mention the keyword in the page title, in a heading and in the content. I would keep it's usage natural.

I wouldn't start linking excessively to your website at every opportunity, when it's called for and appropriate then yes.

I'd be wary of adding duplicate content to your blog. Just a suggestion why not put all the time and effort into building the articles on your site and the links to them from other 3rd party sites.

[Find Accountants]

Hi Michael,

Thank you for your post. Very informative.

I don't mind putting the articles on my own site, but I thought it was always better to have articles externally so that they link back to relevant pages on your site?

I also don't think articles will look natural on the type of site I have, hence the reason why I thought I would post the articles on my blog in the form of posts, but also submit the articles to article directories, etc so that they link back to my blog & then link back from the blog posts (my articles) to my actual web-site.

I don't think the articles will look as strange on my blog.

I might be wrong, but I'm assuming this is the cirrect thing to do. Please advise if I am wrong.

[Niche]

You are talking about article marketing i.e submitting articles to article directories for a link to your site

The thing with article marketing, which actually works by the way, is you need an attention grabbing headline that is not too spammy or pitchy.

I use ezine articles, more on this at ezinearticles traffic

But you could submit articles to Isnare, articlecity, goarticles. There are many article directories online but I think I have mentioned the big ones.

You are right about the backlink thing. The article directories allow you a couple of links in your authors biobox which, at least in the case of ezinearticles are do follow

[Frantic Fish]

I've never written articles before, but now I'm setting up my own business and website it's something I'm doing. Like you I found it quite intimidating at first trying to think of something to write that hasn't already been done better before. Things that have helped me get going:

1) reading questions on forums
2) making a quick note *anytime* an idea strikes me so I don't forget
3) having two tiers of articles
- I'm putting together a few big pieces which will be in series with lots of research and charts, downloads etc - real linkbait I hope
- but then I'm also writing a bunch of little feeder articles, nothing major just small observations, responses or additions to what's already out there
4) making a start! starting is hardest; the more you write the better you'll get at it and the more ideas you'll have
5) staying up to date with your niche
6) not worrying about being the first to write about anything
- there's always room for a different viewpoint so as long as you are original and bring something of yourself to it, then it'll be worth reading

[Find Accountants]

I can agree with making a start is the hardest thing to do, because I still haven't written one article! finding the time seems impossible, but I'm hoping that this weekend I will write at least one! LOL!

How many words do you suggest an article should have & should it have key word rich content, just like the content of a web-site, or should it just be written naturally as long as it mentions the key phrase in the text somewhere?

[Frantic Fish]

These are just my opinions, as I'm not an experienced article marketer.

How Many Words : whatever's right. If it's huge then split it into a series. If it's just a quick observation then maybe just a few hundred words.

Keywords : related to the site but not identical. Perhaps you could find a way of linking within the article into an appropriate part of your site.

And as far as KWD goes, I don't bother to count. If it reads right it's right, if it reads wrong it's wrong. The more synonyms and related phrases you use the better your long tail traffic, and the more you overuse keywords the closer you are to a possible penalty. Write about the topic, NOT the keyword.