Article Marketing Tips:
Writing Effective Link Building Articles

I work in the article approval department for PostLinks.com, and I have seen countless articles come through the system. If an article meets our Article Post Guidelines, I approve it; but many times I wish I could make some tweaks to make the article a little more effective for search engine marketing.

So, I thought I would share some tips for writing effective articles for link building. Some of the tips may seem obvious, but I am adding them to the list because I have seen articles in the PostLinks.com system that didn't take these things into consideration.

Make sure you have one or two links in your article

Yes...This sounds obvious, but I have approved plenty of articles that had no links. Perhaps the article was unfinished and the Advertiser hadn't gotten around to adding links yet, but please make sure all of your articles have at least one link before your post them.

Use your keywords as your anchor text in at least one link

I have seen a lot of well-written articles that use a sentence like, "For more information about blah blah, click here." While the word "here" will still count as a link in the eyes of the search engines, it is far less effective than using a keyword phrase that you are trying to rank for.

For example, if you are trying to rank for "black mold removal", make sure you have at least one link that uses that phrase as the anchor text. You can embed it right in the body of the article like this:

When it comes to black mold removal, there is a lot to take into consideration. Blah blah blah...

You can still have a second link with your website URL or "click here" as the anchor text, but try to have at least one link with a keyword phrase as the anchor text.

Put at least one of your links in the first paragraph

Search engines are indexing larger amounts of content, but it is always best to have at least one link towards the top of the page. The spiders may crawl the entire page or they might only crawl the first few paragraphs. Make sure that either way, they index your link.

Remember that humans read articles too

When you write articles for link building, it is easy to forget that spiders are not the only ones that see the articles. Because we have built-in article and post indexing, many of the posts you make through PostLInks.com actually rank in the search engines. If someone reads the article you posted, you have to make sure that it positively reflects your website. You might actually get some click-throughs from your articles.

Make sure that your content is human readable and nicely formatted. Maybe add an image or embed a YouTube video. If the article is garbage, the reader may assume that your site is garbage too.

Put your keywords in your title

The title is the first thing that search engines (and humans) see. A good keyword phrase tells them what to expect from the page and helps bring authority to your links.

But...Don't just make your title your keyword

Yes, you should put your keyword in your title, but if your entire title is nothing more than a keyword, it can look a little suspicious. You still need to make it a proper title. Below are some good examples:

• Valuable Information about <KEYWORD PHRASE>
• <KEYWORD PHRASE> Tips and Advise
• How to Get the Most out of <KEYWORD PHRASE>

Check your article one more time before you post it

This also sounds pretty obvious, but always give an article a final look before you post it to hundreds of sites. You might have missed something obvious like adding a link.

Use more than just article marketing for link building

Article marketing is an extremely effective way to build links, but it is still a good idea to diversify your link portfolio. Consider balancing out your link building efforts with Comment and Contextual Links as well.