10 Ways to Optimize Your Article For Maximum Search Engine Results

If you want to optimize your article to make it more search engine friendly, there are several crucial steps you must take. Optimizing simply means configuring your article in a manner that gets you a favorable search engine ranking -- one that results in maximum traffic to your site. Here are 10 things you can do to make search engine optimization work for you.

OK, that's a bit simplistic. But if you're serious about getting traffic to your website or blog here are 10 things you must do after doing your keyword research and before you publish your article.

1. Make list of keywords. Make a list of keywords and use them in the body of the article. Be sure you place your major keyword at the top of the list.

2. Include your keyword in your title. The title is one of the first places the search engines spider before looking at the rest of your article. Make sure you place your keyword as close to the beginning of the title as possible.

3. Place your keyword in description. Again, to optimize your article for maximum traffic, always place your major keyword near the beginning of your headline or title.

4. Place keyword at front of article content. Always place your major keyword in the first 90 characters of the first sentence of your article body.

5. Place your keyword throughout article. Weave your major keyword throughout your article body as part of the natural flow of your article content. At a minimum you should use it once at the beginning, once in the middle and once at the end of your article. More specifically...

6. Watch keyword density. Keyword density simply means the number of times your major keyword appears in the body of your article. I suggest a keyword density of not more than 1%. That means you should try to use your major keyword no more than one time per 100 words. Overuse will cause the search engines to regard your content as spam, and completely ignore it.

7.Include your keyword in a link. You should always include your major keyword in a hyperlink, or anchor text. The search engines give more weight to anchored keyword texts, which naturally increases your chances of getting more traffic.

8. Place your keyword in article resource box. If your article is to be submitted to article directories for distribution, make sure you include your major keyword in your resource box and link it to your website or product.

9. Include keyword in bold. Bold your major keyword at least once in the body of your article. This tells the search engines this keyword is an important part of your content.

10. Generate relevant backlinks. Get backlinks from other sites and link them to the major keyword in your article. A backlink is simply an anchor text on another website that links directly to your article via a hyperlink. Search engines use backlinks as criteria to help determine the relevance of your content.

The above steps might seem unimportant and irrelevant, but each one is designed to correspond to the way the search engines work. Following these steps and you will optimize your article for maximum search engine results in the form of more targeted traffic to your website.

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Copyright 2011 Mike Griffith

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