For people who specialize in article marketing, search engine optimization has always been an annoying struggle. It is hard for them to find the “magic formula” that works. Then once you feel confident with something, the search engine algorithms change. Here are some tips to ensure search engines are interested in your articles.
Use keywords that are searched often but that also have a low amount of competition. You do not want to pick a very broad topic because huge websites already have articles dedicated to those topics and it will be very hard to compete with them. Instead, find something that is popular but also specific. Even though your potential audience is smaller, your realistic audience will likely be larger.
It might be tempting, but make sure you do not use keywords too often. In today’s world search engines are really beginning to crack down on spam articles. The search engines will see an article they believe is spam and remove that entire website from their listings. This can spell disaster for an article marketer. If you use too many keywords in an article, it may make the search engine believe that your article is spam and you will be facing an uphill battle.
Make unique titles for your articles. For example, let’s say you run a music blog. Do not just create an article called “Best Five Songs.” The market is so over-saturated with broad articles like that. There is no way you will appear high on search engine results because there is so much fierce competition in that category. So what do you do instead? Well, one option is to make the article more specific. Changing the article to “Top Five Indie Rock Songs Since 2005” will still put you up against some competition but the amount would be considerably less. You increase the chances of your website being found this way.
Always stay up to date on what search engines are doing and how they will affect you. Search engine algorithms are constantly changing; they do not always stay the same. One day your website might be at the top of the listings, then before you know it your page will be listed on the tenth page. Stay up to date to ensure that this problem will not happen to you. If it does, at least you will be on top of it and can figure out a way to fix it quickly.
Some search engines shun certain article directories. Many search engines just completely remove some directories from their results. Know what directories they do this to and make sure something like this never happens to your or your articles.
It is disappointing that there is no foolproof way to approach search engine optimization. We learn the most from people who have been successful with article marketing. If you want to get better at search engine optimization, study what articles listed high up on search engine results are doing right.