It has already been established that article writing is one of the most effective forms of advertisement in internet marketing. It generates large viral traffic even for a few well written articles. For article writing to be effective however, some key factors must be taken into consideration right from the outset of article writing.

Search Engine Optimization

• For article writing to be effective, it must take into consideration the fact that one of the key objectives of article writing in the first place is to advertise the webmasters website, get traffic which then will hopefully ultimately convert to sales.

• To achieve the objective of putting the website in the forefront of the potential customer/visitor’s sight, it is imperative that the article features in at least the first 2 pages of the various search engines. It is a known fact that most people browsing the net will hardly look beyond the first 2 pages for any keyword phrase.

• How does the webmaster get to doing this? Right from the outset, for his article writing to be effective, the webmaster must do a keyword research to determine which keyword phrases are frequently searched for and at the same time are not too competitive in terms of the number of websites positioning themselves for viewing.

• Regarding keyword phrases that are frequently searched for, one must almost become stereotyped to the extent that the numbers rather than other sentimental factors must prevail in your decision making. I give you a perfect example. When I did a keyword search in trying to write something on the "Plug in profit site", I discovered that most people erroneously refer to the site as "Plug in profits site" and ironically, they have the larger search numbers more than those describing it correctly.

What did I do in the circumstance, I followed suit in describing it as such, a case of "if you can't beat them , then you join them" you would say. You will therefore notice that all the articles I write on the "Plug in profit site" is actually on "Plug in profits site", to satisfy the search engines.

• Having established the above, the webmaster must now write his article “around” that keyword phrase by inserting the keyword phrase in strategic spots of the article which include the title, the first line of the first paragraph preferably on the extreme left of both the title and first paragraph. It should also be sprinkled optimally within the article and also importantly, in the last paragraph of the article.

• .Optimal insertion of the keyword phrases for article writing is important because extreme insertion would incur the wrath of most article directories as well as may be regarded as spamming by the search engines. It may also make the article loose its meaning. Article writing for humans.

• As the webmaster takes into cognizance the search engines, he must simultaneously take into consideration the fact that his audience comprises humans and not robots. Accordingly, his article writing must provide useful information to the visitor.

It should be realized that the internet is an information super highway where a lot of useful information abound for free. Any uninformative article will therefore almost immediately be thrashed.

• Optimal insertion of the keyword phrase is again important here as the keyword density must just be ideal and not excessive which can make the article loose its meaning to its audience Relevance to the niche of the webmaster

• For effective article writing, the article must relate to the niche of the article writer or else it serves little or no purpose beyond general information which is not usually the prime objective of most webmasters but rather traffic and ultimately sales. Length of the article

• This may be considered trivial but no it is not. An article that is too short(less than about 200 words) may seem an indication of lack of knowledge and a mere attempt to get traffic at all cost while an article that is too long(more than about 1000 words) may become boring to the audience and take up unnecessary valuable space.. In fact most article directories have a standing rule on this and will in most cases have already done the weeding out. Formatting of the article

• This is important for effective article writing as a long unwinding article without suitable paragraphs, bulleting etc where appropriate may make an otherwise useful article turn out to be a turn-off for its audience who thrash it even before giving it a chance.