Article writing; how to optimise keyword positions?

[gdavies09031977]

Hi,

We are releasing regular high quality articles (and I mean high quality, content rich, relevant and well written articles - not the nonsense that often gets released purely for SEO purposes) on Ezine and others to try and promote our business. However I would like to ensure that we maximise the SEO potential of these articles.

I read somewhere else (and I can't seem to find the article I read) that Google places differing weighting to different sections of an article. I..e. anything that appears on screen (on a standard size and resolution monitor) without scrolling down, is given more weight than the next section that requires a full screen height of scrolling down, which in turn has a higher weight than the next screen height down, and so on. Now I'm not sure if this related to keyword(and therefore article relevance) or just links.

This unfortunately seems to go against how many of our best written and most engaging articles are structured; which have a gentle or metaphorical lead-in to the article and may not mention the actual article topic (and certainly none of its keywords) for several paragraphs.

My question is, should this type of article structure be avoided in favour of an article structure which jumps straight in and utilises the keywords in the first few lines?

[PeterAlexLeigh]

If I were you, I would try a different strategy to article marketing. Google are well aware of how easy it is to submit an article to Ezine and the likes and have therefore weighted any links from those places accordingly. Guest blogging on relevant sites is probably a better strategy.

If you do however wish to persue article marketing then I wouldn't go overboard, maybe a few a month on high quality and relevant article sites. Regarding keywords, generally they are given more weight, the higher they are in the article, however you're probably better off keeping to your quality, well written structure - it's probably better in the long run to go for quality rather than intentionally putting keywords in the best places.

[RyanKent]

should this type of article structure be avoided in favour of an article structure which jumps straight in and utilises the keywords in the first few lines?

Yes

What an excellent question. It is difficult to offer an authoritative answer since Google and Bing have different algorithms, neither disclose their measurements and changes are being made constantly. The best means to determine an answer is extensive testing.

In my experience, the information you shared is correct. It is preferable to immediately engage the reader by using the appropriate keyword or phrase in the first sentence of the article. I would even go further to share my opinion the phrase should be used at the very beginning of the sentence.

It has been repeatedly proven many readers scan articles and do not actually read them. Many readers will often scan the first few sentences and, if they are not hooked immediately, they bounce. While the methods you are currently using may produce higher quality articles, if those articles are not presented in a way the majority of readers desire, those articles are not as helpful.

This writing style adjustment was one I was forced to make. I really didn't like it, but we need to recognize human behavior. Think about a perfect scientific research article. It will be many pages long, use references, long words, etc. Now consider a simple, short rewrite of that article designed for "common" people to read. Even if the simple article contained inaccuracies, it is far more likely to be read and understood by a higher number of people. In other words, search engine users will often prefer the simpler article. That is not to say we should abandon scientific articles in favor of "internet articles". The point is we need to understand how to write an article in such a manner readers will connect with the material and read it.

Take a look at wikipedia. They are the #7 traffic site in the world and have many longer articles. Whatever topic you examine, they will use the exact keyword at the beginning of the first sentence. Pick any topic....apples....and you will see the result: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apples

[gdavies09031977]

Thanks for the reply. We are only a small company, so we are only doing one article submission a week as part of our total and varied SEO strategy.

I don't think the article quality will be affected too much, as the copy writer we use if very very good, I'm confident he will be able to weave the keywords in there to appear completely natural. I'm just looking for confirmation of whether giving him the instruction to use a set article structure (with keywords in the first lines/paragraphs) is necessary or not.

[gdavies09031977]

Hi Ryan,

Many thanks for your reply.

I see what you mean, Wikipedia is a very good example, and your theory held true for everything I looked up on it!!

The read-ability of the articles is not such an issue, the writer we use has a very engaging writing style, but I understand what you mean about skim reading, and needing to see confirmation in the first few lines that the article topic is relevant to the searcher.

Thanks for the advice.

[Alex-Harford]

From any testing I've done, keywords usually rank better when they're at or near to the beginning of a title tag and page content.

I think you should definitely consider guest blogging as an alternative to article marketing. If you use the same site over again (e.g. ezine) your backlinks will be worth less for every new article you add, and depending on the categories you submit them to could be buried deeply in the site. There are some excellent SEOmoz blogs on finding relevant places to submit articles to. Also, if you have this excellent unique content, there's always a benefit in hosting it on your own site...