There is a lot being published lately about the importance of writing articles in relation to Search Engine Optimization.
The reason articles are so important are quite simple if you think about it.
First, you are writing new content on your website, this gives the "spiders" something to crawl and shows your site is an active site.
Second, if you are writing articles that are relevant to your websites purpose, such as; your services or products, then you are supplying the "crawlers" with relevant content, which holds key words and phrases necessary for indexing your site in the rankings of other sites.
Third, people who search the Internet are looking for information. If you articles are well written and informative they will consider your site a resource, thus coming back to it, digging deeper into your pages, gaining trust in your existence, refer you to others.
Forth, when you distribute your articles to the proper article directories, you are able to leave a link back to your site in the ~Author Signature~, this helps to drive traffic to your site, spread your name and build potential customers.
Writing articles is not really that hard to do. Simply take a service or product you have to offer. Write it's title down on a piece of paper. Now think of the major categories that that service or product can be broken into.
Example:
Your business is fixing watches - so your can start by writing your list like this;
1) Fixing Watches
a.) Wind up Watches
b.) Battery operated Watches
c.) Pocket Watches
d.) Water Proof Watches
e.) Antique Watches
f.) Expensive Watches
and so on........
Once you have the major categories listed, break those up into smaller categories, such as other issues, types, brands, eras..... anything you know about them, and don't forget if you don't know something you can always educate yourself by reading other articles and post and then write about different topics that are relevant you your site.
Another demonstration about what I mean;
c.) Water Proof Watches
1.) Fresh water
2.) Salt Water
3.) Water in plastic face covering
4.) How do I know if my watch is water proof?
5.) Can you dry your watch out in a microwave?
and so on.......
You will want to break it up into as many categories as you can think of, it does not matter if there is no different procedure for fixing one category compared to another. The key is to have many different articles for as many separate categories as you can, when an individual searches for a specific item or phrase you want to come up in the relevant search results. Also when you write your articles, have a link to other articles in your content. Like this:
Wind up watches and pocket watches have a lot of the same issues when it comes to fixing internal problems.....
You can link the words Pocket Watches to another article that you have written about Pocket Watches.
This isn't really hard to do. All you do is click on the add link button in your text editor and paste in the URL of the page that your "pocket watches" article is on.
Articles do not have to be long. Infact most people get bored and distracted if it is to long. So stick to the facts of each given subject, a page of valuable information is sufficient.
It takes a little work and time to write the articles and submit them, but it is well worth it in the long run. One of the most important things about having an online presence in relation to your business is using the resources that are available to you, how much effort you put in will be a direct reflection of what you get back