Not everyone knows the value of the internet as a business and marketing tool, but they should. The internet has become a huge part of our lives and the lives of our consumers, and like it or not, that is not something that is going to change anytime soon. The internet has become the place to do business and to supplement the income/information available from a brick and mortar store. Even the tiniest shop owners are catching on to the idea of web sites and Enewsletters, and you should be, too.

Of course, having a web site isn’t enough of a reason for people to want to buy from you. There should be plenty of content to keep your potential customers entertained and informed so that the chance that they will become actual customers only rises. This includes interesting information about your company and what you do, information about the products, and even articles relevant to your target market.

Selling the best baby bottle ever? Have an article or three on breast pumps, first-time mothers, or getting Daddy involved in feeding. Selling horse feed? Inform your customers about the best methods for grooming a show horse or the best way to grow feed. Keeping your customer interested will ensure that they bookmark your site and return again, hopefully making a purchase in the process.

To make those articles work double-duty for you, they should be written to attract the attention of search engines to place your web site higher in the rankings. How much more likely is it that customers will find your site if it is on the first page versus the third? The answer is that most people never even look past the first page of results.

Drawing people to your web site means drawing potential customers to your product. In the writing and internet worlds, these special articles are known as SEO, which is an acronym for Search Engine Optimized. These SEO articles are packed full of your keywords so that search engines rank your web site as extremely relevant.

You might think that anyone can write an SEO article, and to some extent that is true. You could probably come up with a page long article that mentions horse feed twelve times, but would it be interesting to read or relevant to your customers? Sure, you’ve attracted the search engines, but if customers roll their eyes at your obvious attempts to snag them, they are unlikely to explore the rest of your site.

The solution is to outsource writing for your web site to experienced writers. A good writer should be able to write an interesting and relevant article with up to a five percent keyword density. This means that up to five percent of the words in the article are your chosen key word. In other words, your word is used five times out of every one hundred words. That may not seem like a lot, but keep in mind that in a five percent density keyword article, this current paragraph would have used your keyword five times, both naturally and efficiently.

There are a few guidelines to keep in mind when you are outsourcing. The best advice we can think of is that if the price is incredibly low, the quality likely is, too. Best to spend a little more for great work than to settle for something your child could write. A second guideline deals with the density – a good SEO article can be done with as little as one or two percent density for a single keyword. More can often mean better, but more than five percent and it becomes almost impossible to include the word without sounding artificial. Also, the more words in your key phrase, the less dense your article should be. (A five percent density of a five word keyword means that a full quarter of each paragraph is made up of your keywords, leaving little to no room for anything else.)

For a good writer, you don’t even need to come up with a title or theme! Hand them a few key words and ask for three articles of a certain word length (400-600 words is average) and prepare to be amazed at what you get back. Not only will your business climb the search engine ranks, it will also boom with interested new business.

-Ben Anton 2007