As an article writer your job is to please the client no matter how difficult his/her demands are. Your client is usually trying to sell a product or service and your content writing is an important key in his or her marketing plan. One of the most maddening but important aspects of website content writing is keywords and their placement.
Using Keywords Creatively
Keywords, as you may know, are words that the average person uses to look up something on a search engine. But because not everyone is proficient in English or have been taught proper spelling and grammar you client may ask you to use some awkward keywords. For example one of the keywords might be “driver’s license Utah”. How in the world do you use that in a grammatically correct sentence?! Well, you don’t. If you made it grammatically correct then the words would probably not show up in the search engine when the person who was looking for driver’s licenses in Utah typed in their query. You would have lost a web surfer who was looking for the article you are writing.
Sometimes you can use an awkward keyword by structuring your sentence creatively. You could write “when it comes to a driver’s license Utah has some stringent requirements”. You’ve eliminated the comma between license and Utah that would normally be there but at least the sentence makes sense.
Placement is Important – Good SEO Strategy
Keyword placement is another important aspect of website writing and article marketing. To optimize the article for search engine optimization (referred to as SEO) you need to insert the main keyword in the first and last sentence of the article. The more keywords you can group into those two sentences, the better. You should have at least a 2% incidence in the article; a 500 word article would mention the main keyword 10 times. Any more than that and some search engines will not list the article because it meets their definition of keyword stuffing, usually found in Spam.
Word Count Madness
Sometimes you will be asked to write an article much longer than the subject needs. After all, how much can you say about the Japanese beetle or the ornaments women put in their hair? Yet the client wants 600 words about each subject! A more serious challenge is when they want several articles on the same subject that are unique from each other. This means you have to get creative and fill the articles with enough “fluff” to meet the word count. One way to get a few extra words is to use abbreviations and include what they mean such as “the product met the standards of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration)”. You’ve just added 4 more words in defining an abbreviation!
Another way to add to the word count while maintaining quality in your article writing is to examine the history of the subject. Spread it out over several articles if several are ordered but it is just one article be brief enough not to bore your reader. You can also give examples of how the item or subject is treated, used or regarded in other countries or throughout history. Make it interesting and try to compare and contrast it to today’s customs. This type of fluff will add at least 100 words to your article.
Don’t Compromise Your Moral Compass
The last issue you might have with article writing or website content writing is subjects you are uncomfortable with or products you know do not work as the client is advertising. One good example is the current Acai berry craze connected with losing weight. Your research shows you that it is not effective in weight loss although it does have health benefits. If you don’t want to turn down the article you can emphasize the health aspects and minimize the weight loss by the use of subtle words and phrases. These would include “while research is still ongoing, initial results look promising” and emphasizing that a healthy diet and exercise are essential to effective weight loss. Any time you are writing about health issues you should include at least one mention that the reader should consult their physician before starting a diet/exercise/herbal supplement, etc.
With article writing you can have a lot of fun with website content writing and become very effective at article marketing. It’s educational and even entertaining to be an article writer and there is no shortage of work!
