Friday, August 15, 2008

A Sure-Fire Structure for Writing Articles for Your Website

With a little effort and a sound, reusable structure, you can write articles to draw traffic to your website, ad copy to sell your products, and generally enhance your presence on the Internet. With these methods, you will gain the attention of those all-important search engines and get your products and ideas seen.

There is no mystery about the basic structure for writing website articles. Each article should have a beginning, or lead, middle, or content section, and an ending, or conclusion. Not that difficult, is it?

The extra ingredient you want for website articles or ad copy that will draw traffic is this: targeted keywords or phrases. Don't be frightened by the idea of writing an article structured around keywords. It is much easier than it sounds. If you have researched a keyword(s) you want to get traffic for in the search engines, a good rule of thumb would be this: Use your keyword(s) once in the title, once in the beginning or lead, once in each paragraph of the article content, and once in the conclusion.

If you can use this basic structure -- keyword(s) rich title, lead, content, and conclusion -- you will find it easy to write content that will draw search engines to your website.

Take this sure-fire structure and combine it with a bit of research on the Internet or better yet in a nearby library.

Libraries are your "secret weapon" to find material for your sure-fire article structure. Here is the "offline" advantage -- if people are writing articles targeting the keywords "electronic dog fences," for example, by researching the Internet, they are bound to be seeing similar articles. This may not lead you to duplicate their content, but it certainly won't help. If you go to a local library and find some magazines or newspaper articles about "electronic dog fences," you'll be ahead of the competition.

Use that research material with your keyword(s) and write something in the range of 300-500 words and you have your article. Don't be frightened at the idea of writing 300-500 words. Think of it this way: One double-spaced page printed out with one-inch margins all around holds about 200-250 words. If you've read a few articles and taken notes, you probably have more than enough ideas and information for two double-spaced printed pages.

Using the above example "electronic dog fences," you might try the title: "Four Ways Electronic Dog Fences Enhance Your Pet's Life." That isn't the snappiest title you could find, but it does tell someone and the search engines what the article is about -- while using the keywords "electronic dog fences."

Then take the research you have done and come up with four major benefits for dogs and their owners related to electronic dog fences. Your lead might be something like: "Electronic dog fences not only make happy neighbors, they can make life better for your pet, too."

Use each of the "four ways" you mentioned in the title as a section for your article. If you want a short article, make a paragraph for each of the "four ways," a longer article may require two or three paragraphs about each of the "four ways."

When you reach the conclusion, you want to do two things: Try to summarize the lead or title in the conclusion by using the "electronic dog fences" keyword(s) again, and quit.

Use this sure-fire structure and you'll find you can build successful, keyword-rich articles for your website -- even if you don't think of yourself as a writer!

(C) Writing Career