If you look over the immense collection of articles and blog copy on the web, you will discover that a great many of them are badly written, stuffed to the gills with keywords and obviously prepared for the sole purpose of boosting the rankings of a particular website. That’s because in earlier days, many people believed that having overly-high keyword densities was the fast route to high search engine rankings. Unfortunately, some still do. In reality, a keyword density of between 2% and 6% is more than adequate. Those who still think that keyword stuffing pays, are flat out wrong!

Properly Optimized Articles

There are, in reality, three important factors to consider when writing a properly optimized article for use on websites, blogs or for publication on eZINES. These are, in priority order:

1. They must have relevant, informative copy that is compelling to read.
2. They should be prepared to optimize link popularity.
3. They should have the proper keywords and a reasonable keyword density for search engines.

The worst thing about the overuse of keywords in both articles and web pages is that it becomes difficult if not impossible to meet standards for relevance and link popularity. In other words, they are anything but easy-to-read and understand when keyword stuffing is applied.

Articles are Important SEO Tools

Sure, articles should be effective for the major search engines, but most of all, they have to be relevant for the people who read them.

Moreover, if they don’t read well and aren’t really informative, it will be most difficult to lure others in your market ‘niche’ to link to you. Remember that rankings notwithstanding, if the visitors to your website don’t see obvious value in what you say, they can log out and go to your competitor’s websites with a simple mouse click. In this case, even the highest search engine directory ranking becomes useless for delivering visitors who you can convert to customers for your product(s) or service(s).

Appeal to Search Engines without Sacrificing Relevance

The answer to earning a high ranking and delivering lots of targeted traffic comes down to using a balanced approach when preparing articles within the SEO/SEM process. This simply means that you must never:

1. Repeat the same words and phrases too often in your copywriting
2. Sacrifice the relevance that makes your articles compelling and informative to readers
3. Absolutely never stuff keywords to the point where your text’s readability goes to pot.

So just remember to write articles for the ultimate reader first and make very sure that they are easy to read and discuss things that are directly related to the market nice you are in.

If Need Be, Hire a Professional

Granted, not everybody on the Internet is a wordsmith. In fact many people—even those who speak well—just can’t write well. If you fall into this category, worry not. Professional providers of SEO services can do all the important things necessary to make your website—and your articles—relevant, compelling and optimized. There is also a sizeable cadre of freelance copywriters on the web who can write highly relevant and optimized articles for you at extremely nominal prices.