If we know how to use the power of SEO when writing our articles, we will be winners in the eyes of Google. If Google loves our articles, our articles will always Rank on Page1 of Google search engine results.  Then millions of people will see the link to our Top Rank article, and our website, come to visit our site, boost our visitor numbers – our traffic – and traffic = money in the online marketing world.  Easy! Right? Right!

          Basic Keyword Density

In the previous article I covered the basics of Keyword Density: What it is, and How to Check out the Keyword Density of our Competitors – fellow bloggers who are all competing with us for the high value online Real Estate of Top Position, Google Page1. If you read that article first, it will help you understand this article here.

In this article, I’ll cover how to use the power of strategic SEO, how to choose smart Keywords that pull in customers, how to use Keyword Density to outrank competitors, and how to use a Keyword Density Analyzer Tool, when writing our own articles.

If we can optimize our articles better than our competitors, we will convince Google that we outrank our competitors, and we will win in the race to a first page Google listing.

How to Use SEO Optimization For Writing High Rank Articles

Using effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in our articles involves many aspects of how we write articles that Google will love – or rather, that Google web crawlers will love. We sometimes might forget it, but Google is not, in fact, a human. If we want the Google web crawlers to love our articles, we have to think like Google ‘thinks’.

What’s The Best Length For An Article?

Well, these are deep and controversial waters to explore!  Many people have very firm views on this subject.  Most people agree that any article should be at least 450 words long.  Some people say you must not write more than 500 – 600 words because no one ever reads that far into any article.

I say… it depends on the article, the subject, the purpose of the article, the quality of the content, having a good layout for the information included….and the sort of reader you hope will find and appreciate your content.

One other SEO factor that is often overlooked by writers and bloggers, is that if your articles are relatively short, you will probably miss out a whole swag of you-beaut Keyword Modifiers that would be automatically be included in your copy ‘by accident’ – if you are writing a longer article, in a normal and natural way, and in your own ‘voice’.

Key Word Modifiers

Keyword modifiers are all those words and phrases that are closely related to your main keywords – which are closely related to your topic, and which we will be very likely to use when writing a longer, high value content article, on that topic.  All, and any, of the words you include in your article might be relevant keywords in a reader’s Google searching.

Google will rank your content for those ‘accidental’ Keyword Modifier words in the same way it analyzes and assesses your main keywords.  A longer article is much more likely to ‘catch’ these extra SEO keyword accidental ‘hits’, than a 300 word article that’s filled up with 2 or 3 sales orientated keywords, spammed to death, that no one is interested in reading.

How I Write An Article

1. I know what I want to write about

2. I have a rough idea of the structure: Sub topics within the Main topic

3. I collect a list of ‘good’ keywords using the Google Keyword Research Tool. Not sure what a ‘good’ keyword is?  See articles: How to Use Keyword Research Tools

4. I select the main ones (2 or 3) I will include in the Meta Tags: Title and Meta Description. Not sure what meta tags are? Check out Meta Tags Title Tags & Meta Descriptions

5. I compose a Title and Meta Description that include my chosen keywords

6. I make sure my meta tags have accurately described the contents of the article

7. I tweak my Meta Tags until they fit within the Google length limits

8. **I write the article… without thinking about Keyword Density or SEO!

Why? Because the article is written for people, not search engines.  If we have done our research, we already have in our heads, a good idea of the best SEO high search, low competition keywords for our topic.

These words will naturally find their way into our writing, because they are already there, in the back of our minds.

You can check your Keyword Stats, Data and your Keyword Density for individual Posts by using the SEOXray tool in the SEObook Toolbar, after you have written your Post, to see how you are doing in terms of SEO – more on how to do that below.

Remember that the Title, The Meta Description and the first paragraph are the most important locations for maximising the SEO impact of your main keywords.

Keywords are for the benefit of search engines, but you articles are for the benefit of readers.  Keeping them both happy is the key to success.

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How to Optimize Your Article After It’s Been Written

Now you can check your article to see if there are obvious areas where you need to do some SEO tweaking:

SEO Checklist

Optimize your Meta Tags: Meta Title and Meta Description

1. Do you have your main Meta Keywords in your Title and Meta description?
2. Does your Title and Meta Description stay within the Google character number limit?
3. Does your Meta description accurately describe the contents of your article?
4. Can a human reader easily understand your Meta Description?
5. Does your Meta description sound interesting, tempting, and click-able?
6. Does your first Paragraph contain your main keyword(s)?

Check Your Article Using a Keyword Density Analyzer Tool

After you’ve written your article in WordPress, you can either ‘Preview’, or ‘Publish’, and then use the SEO Xray on your own article.  Not sure what the free SEO Xray tool or how to get it? See Use Keyword Density to Blitz Competitors article.

What do you see?  It’s an exciting moment!  How did you do?  Sometimes you can surprise yourself with your own SEO brilliance! And sometimes, sadly, not.

Keyword Density: Compare and Contrast

1. What is the keyword Density Percentage for your major Keyword(s)?
2. How does that percentage compare to the percentage of your top Competitors in this topic?
3. If it doesn’t compare well, how can you tweak your copy to increase the Keyword Density for your main keywords?

Hot Tip: If you think you should try to improve your keyword density for your main keywords, read through your copy and see if there are places where you can change words like ‘its’ or ‘it’ or ‘they’ or ‘them’ to one of your specific keywords, and still retain the ‘readability’ of the sentence.

An Important SEO Trick to Look Out For:

Has the SEO Xray Tool revealed a high-density keyword that you’ve used in your copy without even realizing it? Is it a high traffic, low competition keyword?  If so, check to see if you can slightly re-focus your content to feature this keyword in your key SEO areas of Title, Meta Description and first paragraph. You could have stumbled across a winner, without even trying!

Summary

I’ve shown you some the possible opportunities of how to use Keyword Density to out rank your competitors, and in a lot of detail.  I want you to understand that these are the principles of optimizing your content – and  to impress the Google web crawlers.  I don’t go through all these steps every time I write an article – but I keep these principles in mind, and make sure I do the important basic optimizing priorities on all my articles.

However, the most important focus of writing any article must always be on writing high content, informative, readable text that fulfills a need, or answers a question, being asked by people doing online searches – your readers and customers must come first.

You should never lose sight of the fact that your readers come first.  Impressing the Google web crawlers is important if you want to rank well, but you should never compromise your reader’s online reading experience in order to impress Google. If you go overboard and stuff your article with too many keywords, your readers with not love your content, and will not re-visit your website.

Also, Google is on the lookout for Keyword Stuffing, as it’s so eloquently known.  Google will spot any Keyword spamming – and will penalize you with poor Rankings and Warnings.  It’s a fact of online life: Google knows everything – and it will catch you if you don’t treat your readers with respect.

Finally

You don’t have to spend half a day doing this SEO Keyword research, or tweaking your content until you think it’s perfect.  You certainly should not focus only on beating the Keyword Density percentage numbers of your competitors. Effective SEO is not a numbers game – numbers are only part of SEO Optimisation, and achieving a high Google Ranking. Use Keyword Density as a Guide to make sure you are at least as ‘good’ as your competitors.

If you write good copy, know what your good keywords are, know where best to place them, sometimes check out and compare your competitor’s keyword density, get good ideas from them if you can, tweak your article’s keyword density to please Google (more or less match the keyword density of your Google Page 1 competitors for that topic), you will get high rankings and improve your traffic numbers.  No question!

Well? What are you waiting for??  Go!!  Knock ’em Dead!  Go out there and make me proud!

……….Cue Motto!

Plan Well Start Small Think BIG!