Reprints Online

It's axiomatic on the Internet: Content is King. Search engines love the stuff. People who visit your site are there because they want it. And, if you want to make money with a web site, a good way to get people there for free is to generate article content for someone else.

But, as usual, the devil's in the details. It's all well and good to say 'content is king', but that fact is no good unless you know the specifics. So here are a few tips to help you get the best from your written content.

-Keep your articles focused: Write about a single facet of your given niche. Otherwise, you'll get a rambling, disordered mess.

-Practice: Articles take practice. You'll need to write with some regularity in order to get to the point where you write well.

-Blog: Become a blogger, and host this blog on your own site. There are places to get free blog accounts, but most of them have non-commercial use stipulations. If you break that stipulation and the host finds out, your blog will evaporate without notice. I use WordPress, which takes a bit of learning and requires more maintenance, but is an excellent program and free.

-Organize your content intelligently: This has to do with web site organization, but it can be summed up as 'if no one can find your content, they won't be happy with you'. Organize your site so that navigation is all but idiot-proof, and you'll keep your visitors happy.

-Use Keywords: Find keywords that are actually searched and use them in your articles. You want the ones that make sense so you can work them into the title and body. Just remember the order of operations on this. You are not a slave to your keywords; they are tools for you. You can find phrases that are actually used on the Internet with the Overture keyword tool, or buy a commercial tool for your own use. The Overture tool is free, but the purchased varieties are more thorough.

-Use META tags: These are ways to tell the search engines what your page is about and people using them about your article at a glance. These make your content more search-engine friendly, which is good for you. Sites with high page ranks get a lot of search engine traffic, but not if the person who's reading the search results can't determine what you're offering.

-Tip lists are popular: You're reading a tip list right now. It's an easy way to make an article without too much writing effort. Your readers get good information quickly, and you get content easily.

To get content fast, you can use free content from a free article site. If you do that, you'll get an article without a lot of effort. The down side of this is that you must post the author's ad (better known as a resource box) with the article on your site as consideration for the article's use, and you can't claim it as your own. These types of articles are good for rounding out content, along with RSS feeds, but it doesn't pay not to write at least some of your own.

Keep these tips in mind, and it can help you make your content more of a king for you.

About the Author

Ryan Ambrose is the web master of Financial Self-Reliance, a site about how to actually make money online. The Web Site eCommerce section with this article and others can be found here.