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Honestly, I know we all started our journey to where we are today somewhere. And lucky for you, you will have the knowledge it takes to write your first article by the end of this article. Now I’m going to be completely honest, my first article was terrible, and yours will be too! But that’s ok. Don’t give up. Follow my tips below and each article will get better and better, easier and easier.
Your First Article Topics
The first article topics for me were the easiest. I certainly didn’t know any better yet! Having no idea who or what your competition is was my major downfall. They say you don’t know what you don’t know. And for certain, this was the case before! But write something! Make it fun and entertaining. Talk about something you enjoy, have experience in, and think somebody else can learn from. Tell a story as you go on your experience. Later on, you can come back and fine-tune it to be more competitive with more keywords for the SERPs.
Focus Keywords
Long gone are the days where you simply spammed the same keywords at the bottom of a page to rank higher than the guy who only spammed them a few times less. If you write a naturally sounding article, the search engine results pages (SERPs) will naturally rank you for the words you use. But with a little bit of research, you might find out that your competitors are ranking and fighting over one keyword while leaving a similar keyword wide open for anyone that can find it.
See Also: Best Keyword Research Tips for Beginners
Catchy Title for H1
Ok, lose the clickbait! That is probably what disgusts me the most. There is nothing like getting into an article to find out this is nothing you thought it would be. The H1 is your main heading. When you search, all of those titles you see on the results are all H1 Tags. You only get one of those per article. Make sure you use your keywords in the title.
Permalink
Permalinks are used in the web address to locate your article within a website. Using keywords in this URL will help the SERPs
Meta Description
A Meta Description is the first thing a user sees before he clicks on your article from the SERPs. Use keywords in the meta description so the viewer knows what the article is going to be about.
H2 Headings
H2 headings are where you organize your thoughts into smaller paragraphs.
Smaller Headings
This is an H3 heading, a subheading of an H2. As you get more specific in your subtopic, this H3 will become a breakdown of your H2 where you can go into more details.
Total Word Count
Unless you are an English major that loves writing, your first few articles are going to be a struggle. Aim for something achievable that will start you to be seen. Most will advise aiming for 300 words.
Personally, I like 600 as more of a minimum amount. Unfortunately, as time goes on, you will start wanting to compete with other websites for traffic and will need to be in the +2,000 word range. Not all articles deserve 2,000 words. Some can be kept simple and to the point at around 600 words, maybe less.
Writing Advice
Write 10 articles as quickly as possible. Once those are completed, go back and edit them. Repeat this process over and over again. You will have 100 articles before you know it!
Internal and External Links
Always link to not only internal articles but make references to where you retrieved your information from. Personally, I would not link out to a competing article, but easily to a reputable source in the same industry or even a wiki page.
Add Media
Use rich media, such as videos and pictures. Use keywords in your description. Your Alt should describe more of what the picture is in case it does not load properly.
Use Rank Math
You can choose from many add-ons that can do some amazing ones and others that are just flashy lights. Rank Math has been installed on all of my websites and I highly recommend them to everyone. Granted, what they are showing you will help you
Recommended: Download Rank Math Here!
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