Article Optimization - Directory Submission 101

It is a challenge writing to Ezine and Article publishing Directories.  This is the sandbox that most writers are contributing to today.  More articles are written and show up as an entry to Google, Yahoo, MSN, AltaVist and other search engines than their are websites.  Some websites are articles in themselves.  It is much easier to write an article than it is to build a new website for most of us.  The common person may not be able to do build their own website, but he or she may have the talent to be a successful writer. Think of the competition though!  Thousands of writers writing about their content, promoting their website, and sharing their ideas.  The numbers are overwhelming!  There are a number of things that a writer needs to be aware of when submitting articles to develop a mass readership. 

Article Optimization - If you want your article to show up on page number one of Google, it has to be optimized.  Optimization is done by following some of the simple rules called Search Engine Optimization. 

Choose a high quality article directory to submit to.  This will contribute a great deal to getting the article close to the number one spot.  You can determine the article directories PR rating in Google ·by installing the Google task bar on you browser and going to the article directory website.  Contributing your article to the directory is a very simple thing.  You will have to provide personal information, possibly a pen name, your website url if you have one, and the category you will be writing about.

Use keyword rich content in the title, teaser, and body of the article.  You have to do some keyword research and plug them in to your article every chance that you can.  A good example in this article would be the keyword article directory.  It has to make sense when you use it.  Once every paragraph or two and your readers will not get bored with the article and keep reading until the end of the article.

Use bold, italic, and underline when it seems appropriate with your keywords.  Using Google, go look up some of your favorite keywords.  You will notice in the list of Google links that the keywords you put in are in bold.  Google picks up on the keywords.  Let me repeat that, Google picks up on the keywords.  In SEO Made Easy, the author indicates that not only does Google pick up on keywords, but Google picks up on keywords that are in bold, italic, and underlined.

Article Directories will let you place one to three incidents of anchor text in the body of the article.  This is an excellent way to get a link back to your website!  Google takes a while to do this, but eventually it will index the article and register the link.  You can work in your keywords in clever fashion this way.  If you have a website, and you are promoting your website in the article, this is the opportunity to use the keywords from your website.  If the article directory allows the technique, html anchor text entries can be made in the body of the article as well as the bio.  The reader would not normally know that html was being used.  Of course the Article Dircetory has to accept html code for this to work.

Use anchor text in the article writers bio.  Most Article Directories accept three, others will only allow you one.  This is the sales pitch.  If you have interesting content in the article, and have succeeded in convincing your reader that your contribution is worth investigating some more, they will want to go to your website and look some more!  This is the sincere wish most of all that an author want to get across, to gain trust and repore with his or her readers and to start a continuing business relationship.  It can be done with a proper close to the article asking for the reader to come on in, the water is fine!

Article Writing - If you want your article to be read from start to finish, choose keywords and content that will make sense to the reader.  Don't try to write about nuclear physics to a business crowd. 

Determine your audience.  This is done easily by entering your keywords into Google.  Look at the number of entries returned.  An article will be successful if you choose an audience that is not to large that you cannot compete against and not so small that you will only expose the article too few times to too few readers.  When starting, it is a good idea to start with keywords that are getting about 30 hits a day at Overture.  Normally there would also be less than ten million entries returned from the Google keyword search for your topic.  Work on the larger populations when you get this down.  You will find innumerable targets and keywords that you can do this with.  There is no end to topics available on the internet.  What a rich source of information!

Use original content when submitting to Article Directories.  They have a way of finding out if your content is not original.  Article directory submission guidelines always require you have exclusive license allows your name to be associated with the articles produced for you or by you.  So do not do it.  You will get caught!

Enjoy your writing!  The world is open to to your ideas and more than willing to accept what you have to offer, if it is done the right way!