March 29th, 2010 by Susie

Publishing articles is a great way to keep your search engine optimization campaign fresh, and while, in our opinion at least, everyone should use them, unfortunately too many people abuse them, which only results in devaluing their worth in the eyes of the reader and the search engines. But, written and handled properly, article submissions can be fantastic SEO tools in terms of increasing traffic to your site and optimising your Internet reputation management.

Here are a few top tips to make sure your articles hit the mark with everyone.

Use your expertise
You don’t have to be the next Albert Einstein or William Shakespeare to do this. For example, if you are a beauty therapist or a mechanic then you are qualified and know a great deal more than your reader, so use your knowledge to inform them.

Find your USP
Spend some time researching your field and write about topics that aren’t being covered well as this way readers are far more likely to land on your article rather than having to trawl through dozens of other articles on the same subject to maybe find yours.

Watch your language
Don’t be too informal when writing articles as this can make you sound less authoritative. Remember that the people you are addressing are potential clients. If you sound professional then people will trust what you’re saying and this will do wonders in terms of your online reputation management, as you’ll be viewed as a trustworthy source.

Don’t over-expose yourself
You may be very proud of your prose, but make sure that you don’t list your SEO articles on too many sites and article directories as this can often have a negative effect on how readers and sites view you. Choose where to publish carefully as it’s better to be listed in a few select places where you’ll attract the right type of traffic rather than being seen on any old site.

Only pay for quality
There’s no getting away from the fact that if writing is not your thing then it can be difficult and time consuming putting together new articles on a regular basis. But, before you pay someone to write them for you make sure you see other examples of their work.

There are literally thousands of people offering to write SEO articles on your behalf, but many of them are low quality and will do little for your long-term rankings or online reputation. Make sure you choose a good SEO company that employs professional copywriters that will take the time to research your subject before you jump into paying for articles.

Content before keywords
As with any search engine optimisation, content is, and always will be, king. We’ve all come across articles that are nothing but fluff crammed to the hilt with keywords that have little or nothing to do with what you were searching for. While keywords are important, make sure that the content is actually informative and makes readers feel that they have actually learnt something from it.

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