Posted by Ray White on November 18, 2009 Comments (2)

Articles written for your web site are an excellent source of targeted web site traffic. A well-written article will catch the eyes and interest of your customers and keep them returning to your web site for more information. But, in order to be helpful in driving web site traffic, the article must have certain requirements. These requirements must be met to achieve the maximum benefits that an article can provide for your site.

Below you will read about four things an article must have to make it helpful in driving targeted traffic to your web site.

• Keywords and Keyword Phrases related to your web site

When someone is looking for something specific on the Internet, she will most likely go to her favorite search engine and type some words that describe the information that she wants to find. You want to have the words that she types in as her search term to be your keywords on your web site. An article designed to drive traffic to your web site must be centered on the keywords and keyword phrases related to your web site.

The important thing is that you have an article that contains keywords that are related to your site. For example, if you maintain an auto parts site, you must have articles about cars and their parts. There are tools available on the internet that help you determine which keywords and keyword phrases are most sought. You can use such tools to determine what keywords to use and write about.

The keywords and keyword phrases must be judiciously sprinkled throughout your article. This brings us to the next requirement of an article written specifically to drive traffic to your web site.

• Keyword Density

According to Wikipedia

Keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page.

An effective article must have a keyword density that is neither too high nor too low. Search engines see high keyword density as keyword stuffing; that will hurt the search engine ranking for the article. Besides, the article probably won’t make any sense either with a high keyword density. A keyword density that is too low may be ignored by the search engines. I can’t give you specific numerical values because it depends on which SEO professional you ask. The numbers I have seen are below 10%.

• Helpful Content Relevant to your web site

Articles must be able to entertain people as well as provide good information. Articles should be written well with correct spelling and good grammar. A well written article will boost your reputation as an expert in your chosen field or topic.

Do a little research and provide some figures, facts and statistics that would interest your web site visitors. Or pay someone to write the article for you. If paying someone isn’t in your budget, you might find a good, relevant article on an article directory to post on your web site.

• A link to your web site

If you are going to submit articles to ezines, newsletters, article directories, or other sites, don’t forget to include a link back to your site. A little resource box identifying yourself as the author and including a brief description of your site should always be placed right after your articles that you have submitted. If people like your articles, they will click on the link directing them to your site to see what else you can do for them.

If you have the articles posted on your web site domain, be sure to include, on that same page, links to other parts of your web site.