The Role of Articles in SEO -
Achieving Top Rankings in Weeks

By Darren Chow (c) 2009

You have employed every trick in the SEO handbook but that first page ranking in the search engines has been eluding you. You are about to give up. But before you do, perhaps you may wish to consider taking up article marketing.

First of all, what exactly is article marketing? Article marketing is the process of writing and submittíng original content to article directories. This is not a new concept. For years, marketers have been publishing content in newsletters, magazines, and other publications to gain exposure for their businesses.

The process starts by submitting an article to an editor. If the content is suitable, the editor publishes the article, and the marketer gets some exposure. The process is then repeated with as many publications as possible. In theory, if each publication brings just one customer, then a hundred publications may bring a hundred customers. A hundred customers may just be what a new start-up is looking for.

On the Internet, the results can be astonishing. There are literally thousands of article directories on the Internet. With each article you submit, you are allowed to include two to three text links in the author resource box. Do note that most directories won't allow you to include links in your article body. So keep them to your author signature.

Every time an article directory publishes an article, the website will experience an immediate surge in traffic. This traffic comes from the subscribed readers. After that, the surge dies down a little. The marketer now waits for the search engines to index and rank the articles. Once the article ranks in the search engines, the marketer will receive a constant stream of traffic from the indexed articles.

In addition, the links in the articles will also give the search rankings of the website a much needed boost. When someone writes and submits articles, the wheels of SEO have already started to turn, whether the marketer is aware of it or not. Each published article carries at least two links, pointing back to the author website. In other words, the author website gets high quality back links from well established authority sites whenever an article is approved for publication. But to achieve high rankings in the search results, you need to execute article marketing in the correct manner.

How to Prepare Your Articles for Submission

Article submission can take up a lot of time. So you want to be sure that you get the highest rate of approval from the editors. Here is what you should do to ensure that you get most of your articles approved.

Appropriate word count - Articles should ideally be 500 words and above. You can write whatever you want. But bear in mind that the editors are looking for valuable content that their readers will enjoy reading. So your articles should not be self promotional. All promotional materials should be included in the author resource box, which will appear at the end of the article.

Proper formatting - The article does not have to be perfect. But it has to be legible, and relatively free of grammatical errors. The style of writing is not that important. Most styles will be accepted. Use the hard return to separate paragraphs, and do not include any HTML. Not all article directories accept HTML tags in the article body. As long as the article is of decent quality, it should be approved.

Include target keywords in article title - Your target keywords should be included in the article title. This will improve the chances of your articles rising to the top in the search results. Having keywords in the article title is also part of SEO. When performing SEO, you want the search engines to find relevant content that links to your sites. Having your target keywords in the title is one way of letting the search bots know that the content in the article is related to what you provide on your website.

Write a catchy title and interesting summary - The title is very important because if it cannot capture the attention of your reader, you have just lost a potential visitor. Your title should be speaking directly to your target audience. The article summary should also be clear and concise. Don't beat around the bush. You can elaborate further in the article body. For the summary, use short and powerful sentences.

Delivering the promise of your article title - Make sure that you stay on topic and deliver the promise in the article title. For example, if your article is about link building, then make sure you share some methods on how to build one way back links quickly. Don't stray and write about your pet and then forget to go back to your main topic.

Using anchor text in links - Anchor texts are the words that are in between a set of HTML link tags. Before going into article marketing, you should already have a set of keywords to target. Use these keywords not just in your article title, but also as your anchor texts. For instance, if you are targeting the keywords "Search Engine Optimization", use these words in your links. Don't use words like "clíck here" or any other generic term.

Once you have the above in place, you can start submittíng the articles to the article directories.

How to Submit Articles Quickly and Easily

Before you start submitting articles, you must first get a list of article directories. Your list should contain at least 200 article directories. Choose directories that have been around for years, and have high page rank.

The article submission process can be grueling if you don't have the right tools to help you. As a business owner, you shouldn't be doing such manual tasks yourself. You have more important things to do, like developing products, marketing, and so on. The process shouldn't be consuming too much of your valuable time. Here are some quick suggestions.

Use a free form filling tool to help you - There are tools available for download, such as RoboForm that will help you fill up the forms at the article directories. Once you set this up, it's just clicking and submitting. That will save you from having to copy and paste the article into each and every submission form. A great way to submit articles if you are on a shoe string budget.

Invest in article submission software - There is special software on the market that will help you submit your articles either on a semi-automated basis, or on a fully automated basis. If it's a fully automated process, you don't have to be actively involved. You will, however, have to let the software complete the submission process before shutting it down.

Outsource article submission - You can hire someone else to submit the articles for you. This can be a dedicated person that you work with, or it can be a professional service provider. The difference between this option, and that of using software, is that you don't have to monitor the submissions. Simply place an order, and you can switch off your computer and go work on other stuff.

Article marketing, when done right, can bring short, mid and long term traffic. The short term traffic comes from the current readership base of the article directories. The mid to long term traffic comes from the search engines and the articles. As articles remain online indefinitely on the Internet, they remain as traffic baits and help to attract more visitors to your websites.

If you have done your keyword research, and heed the advice given above, your site could achieve top rankings in the search engines within weeks.