There are two types of keywords that you'll uncover with your research--one is the type you'll want your website to rank highly for, while the other type (called "long-tail keywords") is what you would like your articles to rank highly for.
So, you are "optimizing" your articles for two purposes:
1) You want to use your article submissions (particularly, your resource box) to help Google associate particular keyword phrases with your website. By doing so, you aid your website's cause in getting a higher search engine ranking for that keyword term.
2) You want to use your article submissions (particularly, your title and article body) to help Google associate your articles with certain keyword phrases. That way, when someone searches for the keyword phrase that your article is based on, the article will show up high in the rankings.
You're using your articles to get more traffic to your website in two ways--through getting a higher search engine ranking for your website, and through getting traffic to your website through your articles.
In doing keyword research, you should have come up with a list of longer phrases (3-8 words or longer) that were pretty specific and had potential to be used as article topics. Long-tail keyword phrases will usually have less competition associated with them than shorter phrases, so you should have an easier time getting your articles to rank for this type of keyword term.
The long-tail phrase will usually be pretty easy to turn into an article topic. It is very specific, for example: "how to train a cat". That long-tail phrase would be perfectly fine as a title all by itself. Other times you may need to embellish the long-tail keyword to make it work as a title.
If the phrase was shorter, like "train a cat", you could make it "title worthy" by changing it to "Train a Cat: 5 Tips For Teaching Fluffy To Obey"
So, your first step is to use the phrase in your title. Make sure the title makes sense, that it has correctspelling and grammar and that it would be interesting to a reader. You are optimizing your article for search engines, but it's important not to forget about your human readers!
The next step would be to use your keyword phrase again in the first part of your article, ideally in the first few sentences. You may use your keyword again later in the article (maybe in the middle), but it's important that the phrase looks natural and not out of place. If your article is on the short side, say with fewer than 500 words, it would be better to just use the phrase one time, in the first paragraph.
What about the rest of the article? It's a good approach to just let the keyword phrase (or versions of the phrase) pop up naturally, without putting too much thought into it. If your article really is about that phrase (and it should be--the phrase is the inspiration for the article), then it will naturally appear in different forms.
One thing to be absolutely certain of is to maintain the article quality. If you use your long-tail keywords in your articles with skill, it should not be noticeable to your readers that you are optimizing your article at all--they should just find your article to be extremely helpful and well-written.
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Steve Shaw is a content syndication specialist. Do you own a blog? Need content? Join thousands of other blogs and get free high-quality, niche-focused, human-reviewed content from quality authors sent on auto-pilot - and it's all 100% free! Go to http://www.autoblogit.com for more information.
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