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Section 1: Web content and your business | How to structure an article
Other articles and resources that you’re previously published will help your readers to find out more and strengthen your case. So make it easy for them and link to other relevant content. This also brings a search engine benefit through internal linking – you’ll be directing bots to deeper content within your site.
5. What external resources (if any) should you link to?
Many people worry about publishing links that lead people away from their own site and onto others. I don’t think this is a valid concern and have never been afraid to link to great content on other sites. It adds to a complete experience for the reader and that can only be a good thing.
Writing tasks step by step
1. Write the headline
Make sure your headline fulfils its most important job – getting people to read on: to do that you need to ensure you have a benefit in the headline. It’s also important to
include your primary keyword. your headline.
2. Write the sub-headings
People find it hard to read long blocks of copy online, so use short paragraphs when you’re writing and use keyword rich sub-headings to direct them to important points. I
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Section 1: Web content and your business | How to structure an article
like to map out the sub-headings before I’ve written anything.
3. Write the summary
The first paragraph should summarize what the whole article is about and should also include both primary and secondary keywords. A well written summary should have the reader thinking, “I must read more of this...”.
Now review what you’ve written. From the headline, summary and sub-headings, it should be possible for anyone to ‘read’ and understand exactly what the final article is about.
4. Write each paragraph
Once I’ve completed these first three tasks it’s very easy to fill out the gaps with good copy. Once I’ve reached this stage the article almost writes itself.
5. Write notes on the key points
Finally, when my article is complete I’ll put it aside for a few hours or overnight and then come back to it fresh. I’ll read it out loud as this helps me uncover any pieces of awkward grammar. My final job will be to write notes on the key points, making sure to include keywords. I’ll publish the notes in a text box so that readers have another opportunity to see that the article is worth reading.
Finally, I’ll give the article to a trusted colleague and ask for their honest reaction.
So that’s the structure I use with nearly every piece of writing I do. Have a look at the structure I mapped out and see how it is reflected in the finished article. Follow this approach and your failed attempts and unfinished articles will be a thing of the past.
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Write winning articles quickly
Many efforts at writing end in failure. Indecision and self doubt inhibit the writing task. You’ve got to train your brain to overcome this with a good structure. Map out the structure and then fill in the bits. If the article in well structured, it will be easy to read and understand.
Answer these questions:
1. Who is this article for?
What value will it give them?
What do you want people to do as a result?
2. What are your primary and
Take these actions:
1. Write the headline
2. Write the sub-headings
3. Write the summary
secondary keywords?
4. Write each paragraph
3. What other ideas and keywords
are important?
4. What other articles that you’ve
already published should you link to?
5. What external resources (if any) should you link to?
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5. Write notes on the key points
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How to optimize a page for search engines
By employing a few simple techniques you can make optimizing your pages for search engines part of your process of content creation. Follow this guide and each of your pages can bring you search engine visits for thousands of different keywords.
Focus your page’s SEO on a primary and a secondary keyword.
Target each page’s SEO on a primary and secondary keyword. (Don’t make the common mistake of using different pages to target the same keywords.)
Wordtracker can help you
Before and during writing, search Wordtracker with your target keywords and the results you see are keywords in your target keywords’ niches. Using our example of a page targeting ‘business strategy ’, Wordtracker gives us 157 keywords containing ‘business strategy ’ – see the first 14 in the following image:
Your choice of keywords will depend on your page content and your SEO strategy. Find out more about how to develop your site’s SEO strategy here .
Don’t be afraid to target quite ambitious keywords. You don’t have to immediately succeed for your precise main target keywords. Every keyword is used in many thousands of other keywords, collectively called the keyword niche or the long tail of search.
For example, a page might focus its SEO on the phrase ‘business strategy ’ but get more results for searches using those words without replicating the exact phrase, such as ‘business development strategy ’.
A search on ‘business strategy’ in Wordtracker’s Keywords tool.
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Section 1: Web content and your business | How to optimize a page for search engines
Quickly study the results to see if there are any keywords that are appropriate for your page’s content and that you can use naturally in your copy.
Use singular and plural versions of your keywords. Also add synonyms (words with similar meaning). So our ‘business strategy ’ page might also use ‘strategic’, ‘strategies’, ‘planning’, ‘plans’ and ‘strategy models’.
Use your target keywords in these specific places
Use your primary and secondary target keywords in the following positions on your page:
• • • •
Page title tag
Description tag
Headlines, sub-headlines and body text Internal and external links (use text)
Now let’s look at each of those positions...
Page title tag
See the following grab from our example page, showing its page title tag – ‘Business strategy | Types of business strategies’ at the top of the browser window:
Make sure to include keywords in your page’s title tag.
Make sure your content management system (CMS) allows you to control every page’s page title tag.
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