How to Write Articles that will get you TRAFFIC

I've read a lot of posts here, and gotten a lot of great help and ideas. This is my first attempt at giving something back, by sharing some of the things that have consistently worked for me as far as article writing. I've gone from writing articles just to get links to writing articles to bring in heaps of targeted traffic... and here are some of the things I did:

Write a Kickass Title
This seems to go without saying, but your title should be eye-catching and interesting enough to click on. Too many people concentrate on stuffing the title with keywords that dry it out and make it dull. You want something intriguing, and I've found it's often good to capitalize a word for emphasis. Make the title offer something important that the reader thinks he or she ought to know - getting that initial click is the first part of the battle.

Make a Short but Catchy Summary
Many article sites display a summary, which will be the first thing a person sees. Keep your summary brief, and don't go into too much gory detail about your article's content - there will be plenty of time for that later. Too often people make the mistake of trying to fit too much in the summary. Make it short and sweet.

Leave a Teaser in your Title or Summary
This technique always generates good hits for me. For example, I wrote an article entitled "Pass your FAA Checkride - 10 Tips you MUST Know". This kind of thing leaves people wondering... "hmmm... what MUST I know? What the hell does this guy know that I don't?" That's the impression you want to leave with them.

Then, in the summary of the same article, I give them the line "By following the 10 tips listed below, you'll not only pass your FAA checkride - you'll do it with skill and confidence." The 'by following the tips' line lends a sense of requirement to the reader. The 'listed below' portion grabs them by the hand and leads them to read further down... and now I've got them in the body of the article, where I want them.

Write Casually
No matter what your article's about, you'll need to keep someone's interest if you want to get them down to your links. Chances are you already know your niche very well, and you're itching like crazy to work in every single detail. But stop for a minute and think. Before you stuff that article full of keywords that are juicy to you... remember that you might be drying it out for anyone who might be reading it. Yes, get your keywords in there by all means - but remember to write with a casual demeanor. Be informative, but not too formal.

Don't Be Afraid to Crack a Joke
Yes, really. The most popular blogs are funny and often sarcastic - they make people relate to certain situations and keep interest through humor. For an article, it should be no different. I'm not saying you need to do a stand up routine, but throw some funny parallels and sharp points in there when you can. This lets the reader know you're still with them. You're a person just like them and not some robotic text generator.

Use Spell and Grammar Checking
Nothing turns me off worst than reading an article with bad grammer. A spelling mistake here or there is forgavable, but when people start screwing up tense mid-paragraph and things up and get obscure with runon ideas and I think maybe that might not be a good idea. Ya dig me? Good.

Numbered or Bulleted Lists are Good
This is one of the first tricks an article writer learns, and when I first started doing it I thought it was a little cheesy. Guess what? Cheesy or not, it works. People scanning your article can bolt at any given moment, so any techniques you can use to keep their attention are always good. Numbered lists almost always get a cursory scan, and by putting bullet lists in bold font you'll almost guarantee the reader will at least eyeball each of your points, maybe even drilling down to read the text beneath the ones he or she is most interested in.

Place a Link to your Site at the Bottom of the First Paragraph
This trick I learned myself, and since I've started doing it my hits from article submissions have more than quadrupled. I usually place the name of my website in the last sentence of the first paragraph and hyperlink it to my index page. For example, in many of my articles on wall decor, I'll end the first paragraph with: "Great online websites such as the Wall Sticker Outlet offer these types of products and more, and offer free shipping too!". If they click right there I've got them. If they don't, it'll stick in their mind that there WAS a hyperlink... and if they're interested enough as they read down the article there's now someplace for them to go back and click.

Yes, I know not all article sites allow this - many only allow you to place links in the resource area. But there are a good number of sites that DO let you have a link or two in the body of your article, and you need to take full advantage of these.

Do Your Keyword Research First
I intentionally left this one for last, even though it's the first thing you should do. A while back there was a great post here on DP about how to write articles based off lesser traffic'd 5-word key phrases. I'd link to that article and give proper credit at this point, but I lost the bookmark when my machine crashed.

In any case, the general idea was to research key phrases with little to no competition, and then go after them by writing a really good article. Ideally you'd start by researching a main (high-traffic) key phrase, then work your way downward until the traffic was around 200 clicks or so a month. At that point you'd check google to determine which ones you could easily rank on page one for, and then go for them. It's a lot easier than you think it might be.

Whoever wrote that post, I wanna kiss the guy. It's the single greatest idea I've read here, and it's helped me tremendously. It's also good for any niche, no matter what your site's about. Awesome idea.

Anyway, that's about it. Make sure you DIGG your articles to get them indexed right away, and to take up another clickable slot on SE pages. Use article distribution sites like I-Snare and get your stuff out there. Stop worrying yourself silly over duplicate content and concentrate more on writing great articles that people will want to read and click on (imagine that!), rather than just trying to dish yourself one-way links. Not that there's anything wrong with the links either...

Hope this helps people as much as I've been helped here already.

 

For getting page rank we can research on less search key phrases and can change the post accordingly. But for getting good traffic we want to research on medium search keywords and have to gain your page in front of search results for that page. I want to get my <a href="http://www.helpdesk4pc.info" title="pc walkthrough">pc walkthrough</a> blog to get into first page of search results for the keyword pc walkthrough. There is a lot of competition, what can i do to get the job done. I am building links for my home page with anchor text as pc walkthrough. Is it the right way to get in first page of google search results for that particular keyword.

 

Nice article, you are right it is not just about writing any article.

 

nice article...good work

 

These are great tips for writing articles, thanks for sharing them. I see you used a couple of those tips in your post

 

Thanks for the article, it helped me a lot.

 

thanks for sharing, was going to write some, will help me lot.

 

Good stuff, thanks for sharing.

 

Cheers for these great tips about writing appealing articles! Here, have some green.


Write a Kickass Title
You might want to add a warning not to use the exact same keywords in the title of the article as you do in the anchor text of the links. I've seen some instances where the article itself ranked higher than the webpage it referred to.


Leave a Teaser in your Title or Summary

Did it generate good hits because you submitted the same article more than once? Have you never heard of duplicate content issues or have you just boldly ignored those issues?


Place a Link to your Site at the Bottom of the First Paragraph

This is obviously done, because a hyperlink in the body (preferably more towards the beginning) carries more SEO weight than elsewhere. Would you say that it is better to submit an article to a popular directory that allows only footer links (links in the resources box), and thus benefit from more traffic than "link juice", or to submit an article to a lesser known directory that allows links in the body text, and thus benefit from more "link juice" than traffic?


Do Your Keyword Research First

Could it be this article with tips to greatly increase the traffic or perhaps this article about the benefit of long-tail keywords in driving traffic?

 

Nice article .. really very very helpful .. thanx man

 

Ah, found it. Here's the original thread: My favorite SEO technique

Kudos to the author, it's a great post.

 

You make good points in your article.

 

Awesome article. I think your post reflects most of the tips you posted. Very well done

 

I totally agree with spell checking. I am not highly educated, and English is not my native tongue. Actually I only had around 6-7 years of schooling. But i still use the spell checker and try to obtain a high level of spelling integrity in my work.

 

cool! now that's what i call a writer

 

Good article ,i noticed that you use bold font for subtitle. it always make people read cofortablely.

 

great and cool...

 

Very good article. You have covered all areas of article writing. You might have been very successful in article marketing. Thanks for sharing.

 

Great article, thanks for sharing!

 

Thanks for this - valuable info.