Article Contents - The Structure

1. Article Contents

One of the ways we can obtain relevant backlinks is through article marketing. Whilst the value of the links we receive from mass article submissions aren’t as great as they once were, they do still hold a lot of value.

You may have learned about writing articles as a form of sales copy in order to drive people to your site. When we’re attempting to obtain backlinks, we actually do the opposite. Since our goal isn’t to drive people to our site, but rather to obtain relevant backlinks, we will be writing our articles with an entirely different state of mind. We’ll be writing articles without trying to sell any product at all! We instead will be focused only on providing helpful, relevant and informative information within our articles, not even mentioning any product.

This may seem absurd, but let’s look at things from Google’s perspective for a moment. Google wants to provide the most relevant, non spammy and informative content possible to anyone that uses their search engine. They achieve this by providing search results that are relevant to the keyword phrase a person is searching for. The first sites Google will be displaying are those that they believe are “authority sites” for the keyword phrase that the person entered.

A long sales copy landing page about an Acne Treatment eBook isn’t going to hold the same authority for an organic listing as an educational site that explains the various medical conditions associated with acne. At least, not naturally. That’s because naturally the educational site will receive more backlinks from other websites, from people who think that the educational site has something to offer. It’s unlikely that people will be linking to a commercial sales letter (not naturally anyway). That’s where we change things as Internet Marketers. We manually create these backlinks ourselves, in order to pump up that Acne Treatment eBook landing page to compete with the educational site.

One way we get these backlinks from sites is by submitting articles to multiple article directories and placing a link within the article that leads back to our landing page. Now remember when I said that we need to include relevant and helpful information within an article as opposed to sales copy? That’s because Google will be determining our Keyword Authority based upon the pages and sites of where our backlinks are coming from.

If Google sees the source of all our backlinks as being articles that advertise the same product through repetitive salescopy, then there’s a greater chance these results will be filtered. Furthermore, many article directories will reject articles that are advertising a product, or that contain an affiliate link. Remember what our current goal is: it isn’t to drive a sale (not at this stage), it’s to create a relevant backlink. It’s important you grasp this concept.

2. Article Structure

Ideally, the articles we write for article directories should contain between 400 – 700 words with our keyword phrase occuring between 2-5% of the time. This is a good number to work between as 400 words give you the opportunity to properly optimize your keyword phrase, and setting the limit to 700 words will prevent you from wasting too much time on each article.

Remember, your article should consist of purely informative information, with no salescopy whatsoever. Your goal here is to gain Keyword Authority and Page Rank. Now, say that you wish to gain Keyword Authority under the keyword phrase “pet tropical fish”. You could structure your article as follows -

Example :
Article Title: “How to care for and feed your pet tropical fish”

Article Body: Provide informative information about caring for pet tropical fish (research the internet to find information about this subject if you don’t know it yourself). Repeat the keyword phrase “pet tropical fish” between 2-5% of the time without sounding too spammy. I personally aim for only 2%, as the keyword optimization here isn’t that important, and I find anything higher begins to sound spammy.

About the Author: You include this at the end of your article. This is the most important section of your article and is what will contain the backlink to your targeted web page. Remember, don’t advertise yourself or any product. Your only goal here is to create a link back to your web page that consists of anchor text containing the keyword phrase you’ve optimized the article under. An example of a good “about the author” section would be as follows -

About the Author: “Steven Heron is a researcher of tropical fish, and maintains a website about breeding pet tropical fish.”

Notice that my About the Author section contained no incentive whatsoever for anyone to click on the link? I didn’t advertise the site, because I don’t really care if anyone clicks on it or not. The sole purpose of me writing this article is to create a relevant backlink from the article directories I’ve submitted it to, not to get clicks on my link.

The backlink is relevant because it meets the criteria of a relevant backlink as was explained in the Keyword Authority section. Whilst the article directory I submit the article to may not have any authority on tropical fish, the actual web page itself of the article will be optimized for the keyword phrase “pet tropical fish”. Furthermore, the anchor text link to my web page contains the keyword phrase “pet tropical fish”. So we are meeting at least two of the three things we can do to obtain Keyword Authority, without being in the slightest bit spammy.