Using Keywords in Associated Content Articles

Almost 50 articles written and submitted to Associatedcontent.com with less than 3000 page views over a two-month period, and upfront payments averaging about $3.50 per article with the lowest at $3.01. "Not bad," I thought to myself, "but some content providers are performing much better and I'd like to also."

In my continuing attempt to learn the secrets of successful online writing I glossed through the Associatedcontent.com forums as I had done many times. There were the usual, "Where's my money?" and "Why are my page views so low?" questions with the standard, "Learn to promote, noob!" and "You need to stop sucking!" replies. There were also a few, albeit cryptic, discussions on how to better utilize keywords. Normally I would quickly scan the topic and move on, and after all, I was already using keywords and writing rather well, although my grammar and choice of topics could use some fine-tuning. But something in the back of my mind was stirring, had I really been using keywords appropriately? Some of my topics might be a little outside of Associatedcontent.com's interest, but some of those articles should have had many more page views. Then I recalled reading on the forums a few days earlier that those upfront payments took page views into account. I suppose I might be a little slow on the uptake, but at that moment it hit me.

Proper keyword usage equals better page views resulting in higher upfront payments.

This revelation was not much different than a religious experience.

In one quick flash almost all of my published articles came to mind and I knew the truth of my wicked ways. I had managed to deceive myself into thinking that I was writing decent articles with appropriate keyword usage. This was simply not true. Not a single article had utilized keywords properly. But how could I know for sure?

Textalyser.net would reveal the truth once and for all. Quickly I copied my latest submission and pasted into the Textalyser.net analyzer field, hit the button and presto!

What was this?

My article's keyword only showed up in the scan twice!

Frankly, I was beside myself with grief. Almost fifty articles, weeks of effort, wasted. Furthermore, my name was attached to every one of them.

You may be thinking right now, "Hey, waitaminute...I thought this was a keyword "guide", not some blog post about a guy who just realized he sucks at writing articles online."

Well, the truth is, you don simply do not need a detailed guide with minute instructions on how to utilize keywords. Just pick a topic, choose a description. Let us use "fetish sex" as an example of a workable keyword. All you have to do is insert the term "fetish sex" several times throughout your article. When you are done, copy and paste the article to the Textalyser. If your keyword comes up with about a 5% usage rating, you are good to go. If, however, your keyword comes up over 6% you could be accused of keyword saturation and Associatedcontent.com will ban you, and that would not be so good.

So there you have it, a beginner's keyword guide. Hope it helps. And if you were expecting some other form of keyword guide, perhaps one that sheds light on how to use SEO stuff, sorry to disappoint. I am a beginner after all.

However, I can leave you with one more bit of useful keyword information. After running this article through Textalyser, it revealed that "keyword" was used ten times, while "keywords" was used seven times for a total of 5.3% (not including this last paragraph). Google considers variations of a keyword as just one word so that "keyword" and "keywords" both add to your total count, although using quotations around keywords as I have done seems to make the keyword invisible. Now, get writing!