Keywords naturally play a major role in article writing. There’s a recommendation for the number of times key phrases should appear and where they should be placed. Having said that, let it also be known that keywords should not make up your entire article. How many times have you clicked on a link only to find an article that did not bear anything useful or even to end up on a page with just an enumeration of keywords? Your content must have substance. It should, at least, make sense. Search engines will pick up the kind of traffic you get, whether your visitors stay exactly one second and then leave, their disgusted exclamations are practically audible through the web.

What are the other things article writers must bear in mind as they write their pieces?

• Make your articles as useful to the reader as possible. They must be informative and up-to-date.
• Make your articles concise and to the point. You are not up for a literary award. It is even possible that you will not get a byline if article writing is simply a service that you provide. The point is, flowery paragraphs will turn off your target readers. They want a quick and easy read with as much information as possible packed in.
• Use bullets and numbers. This will keep your writing organized and cohesive. It also makes for easier reading. Most of the time, the readers will scan the length of the article and their eyes will be drawn to the bullets. They usually decide if the article is useful or not based on what they were able to browse through.
• Come up with a search engine-friendly title that reveals how the article can help a reader. Keywords figure into this. Other than this, it’s pure common sense. Readers will choose articles with titles that indicate what kind of information the entire length of the piece has.
• Put links within your article. Refer to previous articles that you have written by embedding links to them within the body of your article.

Once your articles are written, what are some techniques you should employ in aid of online promotion?

• Post these keyword-rich articles on your site. Such informative articles that are peppered with keywords are great ranking boosters for your site. Syndicate your articles by using RSS Feeds. This helps in the ranking too.
• Post teasers for your articles at forums and message boards. Get active in these venues. If you’re a regular, you can post snippets of your articles, the link to your website accompanying it of course, without being branded as spam.
• Submit to article directories. To get your article more views, have it published in directories. These already have a broad range of readers and many people consult them for research. Their search engine rankings are also usually excellent, so your article can get a wider readership. Your links get better exposure too. Some of the most popular directories are ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com, and articlealley.com.
• Gather all your articles and publish them in an e-book. Recycling is smart, so compile all your previously published articles. The end result can be a freebie that can be passed around in a very viral way.

Online marketing with articles is a powerful promotional technique that can give any website a boost, whether in terms of search engine ranking or in terms of sales. It is definitely a winning option.