Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Harness The Power Of Article Relevancy

By David McCammon

Your articles have to remain relevant to the main theme of your website. If they don't, you are going to lose visitor trust as well as search engine power.

What's relevant?

"Relevant" means "related to." Basically, any subject you can tie in some way to your main business can seem relevant in an article. If you are selling a startup kit for small businesses, you can generate a list of relevant topics that will interest visitors and keep search engines happy:

Basic equipment business startups need

How to get a startup loan

Tax tips for business owners

Creating an advertising budget on a shoestring

Basic equipment business startups need

Good reasons to start a small business

How to get a startup loan

This is not a complete list of course. Any website about small business can generate a large number of articles with content that's relevant.

But what if you sell homemade dog treats?

Niche markets can be a bit more difficult when it comes to determining relevant content. If your topic or area of expertise is narrow, consider branching out the subjects of your articles to include other areas that may be of interest to those visiting your website.

In the above example it is safe to assume that most of your readers and prospects are dog owners. So given that consideration, there are lots of topics you can write or otherwise acquire that will keep readers interested and brand you an expert. For example:

How to come up with a creative name for your new puppy

Housebreaking tips for puppies

Shelters versus pet stores

Housebreaking tips for puppies

Whether dogs should wear sweaters

How to vacation with your dog

Shelters versus pet stores

You will notice that all of these topics are a natural extension of the main business. That would be dogs and dog owners. Since each of them is related to the website, a mention of homeade dog treats can be included naturally in each article.

Finding relevant topics

If it's hard to come up with relevant article subjects, try using a keyword tool to get more ideas. There are several free and useful keyword generators that can kickstart the thinking process and reveal topics you might not have thought of.

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