Writing and publishing articles is extremely important to the promotion of your website. A couple of informative articles can make a great difference to the amount of traffic that your website gets. Although 'targeted traffic' is best, more traffic is still better than less. You'll need to publish excellent articles on your website, and get them published on other folks websites as well, to get as many links as possible back to your site.

Articles are a vital element in getting visitors to your site. The more visitors you get, the better your Alexa rank and the higher in the search engine results your site will appear. The higher your rank in the search engine results pages, the more visitors you'll get. More visitors means more revenue, and open up other possible revenue streams, like advertising.

But you can't just stick any old article on your website. You need to ensure that any articles you write meet certain requirements. Well-written articles will keep your website visitors interested, and keep them coming back for more. They'll recommend your site to other people, bookmark it and promote it for you.

When you write an article, you should make sure that it contains the following 4 elements.

Compelling Article Content

There is a ton of complete garbage on the Internet. Many sites use of private label articles, which read as if they were written by 8-year-olds for whom English is a second language. Make sure that the content you write is entertaining, informative and original. Eliminate spelling and grammatical errors - spelling errors distract from your content and reduce trust.

Use numbers and statistics when they are relevant. People respond well to accurate, complete information. Write in order to boost your reputation as an expert in your field. People are much more likely to buy from you if you establish trust.

Keyword Phrases

It's vital to ensure that your article contains the relevant keywords and keyword phrases. When a search engine user types in a keyword or keyword phrase, the search engine finds and displays the pages it thinks are most relevant to the keywords used. You need to ensure that your article contains relevant keywords and keyword phrases so that it can be easily found. It's also better if the keywords are related to the topic of the website.

Tools like Wordtracker's free keyword tool or Nichbot Classic can be used to find the most popular keywords and keyword phrases related to your topic.

Keyword Density

Keyword density is just the number of times the keyword or keyword phrase appears on the page, as a percentage of the total number of words on the page. A keyword density of between 2% and 5% is usually regarded as acceptable. Too high a keyword density might be seen as "keyword stuffing", which would tend to reduce the search engine ranking of the page.

The resource box

If you submit your articles to article directories or ezines, you will want to add a link back to your site. It is accepted practice to place a small resource box at the end of your article, with a brief description of you and your website and a live link to your site. Anyone who republishes your article is expected to include the resource box. This is a vital tool for getting backlinks, as well as visitors who have read what you have written and are interested in learning more.