Writing articles; good SEO
From Starving Artists
Writing articles is just plain and simple good SEO. Yes, it's one of the many things you can do to help bring traffic to your site, but submitting articles may just be tops on the list of to do's in terms of SEO marketing.
Google is no longer giving much weight to reciprocal links when deciding which sites will go to the top of the search engine rankings. For more information about that see this article that I wrote titled Reciprocal Links.
So, if reciprocal links are no longer valid what can you do? The search engines are constantly telling you to accumulate one way inbound links on sites with relevant content. We often assume that means that those sites have to want to link to you and there's nothing you can do to make that happen. That's not necessarily true. By writing and submitting articles, you have created an entire page of relevant content on which your link is placed.
By writing an article and submitting it to an articles directory, you have accomplished several things. You have created a valuable document on a website that is updated frequently and therefore may be given more weight by search engines. You have added an inbound link on a page with relevant content. You have increased your chances of being found by search engines. Even if your website doesn't place in the top spots in the search results, your article may thus leading more people to your website. If you write enough good articles you may start to gain some recognition as an expert in your field. Others are more likely to direct traffic to your article by sharing your link on their blogs or posting it in forums etc. Combine all of those benefits and you can't argue that's just good marketing!
If you have noticed the changes in the way the search results come up as of late you may have noticed that sites that are frequently updated end up on top of the search results over standard websites. Likely your searches are more and more often taking you to forums, blogs, article based sites like Wikipedia etc. A standard website just can't compete with those sites when it comes to fresh content. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! ...now that doesn't mean you shouldn't post your articles on your site, you absolutely should! The more places the search engines might find your information the better!
Write about what you know, don't try to force it. Each of you has areas in which you may have some expertise if you think about it. When you write about what you know, the words seem to come easily. Many experts seem to agree that writing well written thorough articles may just be the best thing you can do for your business!
Jennifer Kramer 10:44, 18 September 2007 (EDT)
