Captivate with the Headline You have probably heard this time and time again, but it can't be overstated: you have to capture a reader's attention with the title of your article.
Try to make your title keyword rich as well as targeted.
The longer your title the better as long as you are using your main key words and using language that catches your readers' attention.
Put yourself in the mind of your reader for a moment.
If you are searching for information and you have a list of articles in front of you, which one will you choose? The title may be the first and last part of your article that is read unless you can stand out from the crowd.
Get to the Point Quickly If you are reading a good mystery novel, the suspense keeps you going to the next page.
You are not trying to write a mystery novel here: don't keep your readers in suspense.
You need to get the point quickly or your reader will simply click on the next article in the list to find what they are looking for.
If there is one bad byproduct of the information available on the internet, it is that people have become very, very impatient when trying to find it.
If you string your reader along too much, they will leave your article before reaching the end.
Write for the Search Engines If you want your article to rank well in the search engines, you have to write it with them in mind.
Every article should be built around 5 to 10 keyword phrases and your content should reflect that.
You don't want to over do it though, or your article will just look like spam to the search engines.
It is best to keep your keyword density around 5 to 10 percent at the most.
Just keep in mind that search engines are not human.
If you want your article to be found, you have to write in direct terms and try not to use to many metaphors or sarcasm.
Write in a Skimmable Fashion Writing for the web is different than writing a book or a short story.
Large paragraphs of text tend to turn off readers on the web.
The reason for this vast amount of information available on the web.
People who spend any amount of time online have turned to skimming material.
Let's face it, you can waste a lot of time surfing the web without making much headway unless you are very focused.
When people are looking for information they want to find it as quickly as possible.
This is why they will quickly skim an article to see if it contains what they are looking for.
Writing in small chunks will make skimming much easier for your reader.
Don't Try to Be Shakespeare You really don't want to approach article writing as though you are creating a work of art or the next great masterpiece.
Articles need to be written in plain and simple language so people feel comfortable reading it.
If you start getting fancy with your language you are bound to lose readers who don't feel like looking up definitions in order to understand your point.
Try to keep things at a reading level that will reach the biggest audience possible because that is the whole point of writing them.
If you write over the heads of your potential readers, you are just shooting yourself in the foot.
Finish Strong It is always a good idea to re-emphasize your main points at the end of your article to reinforce them in your readers' minds.
I'm sure you remember writing a conclusion to a term paper in school.
You certainly don't want to rewrite the whole article, but hit the main points again.
Not only will this be helpful to your readers, but you will be hitting your keywords again at the end which is just good on-page optimization practice.
Now get out there are write some great articles!