Adding Articles To Your Site

There are a number of ways to source articles for your sites (some free, some you pay for). I've listed them in this blog post so I won't reiterate them here.

Probably the most common methods used though are self-written articles and PLR articles...

Self-Written Articles:

If you're going to write your own articles, then write them in SiteBuilder Elite's text editor in the Edit Articles Module. Word processing software, such as Word, adds all sorts of weird and wonderful characters to files which web browsers cannot interpret. They also use directional quotes (the 66 and 99 style quotes) and apostrophes, which browsers also cannot display correctly. So don't write your article in Word and then copy and paste into the Edit Articles Module. If you want to write articles outside of SiteBuilder Elite, use Notepad instead as it's a very basic text editor and doesn't stuff files with strange characters.

If you do write your articles in Notepad, put a blank line between each paragraph. When you're finsished, you can copy the article into the Edit Articles Module and make further mods there (e.g. adding headlines, bolding, etc).

Stay On Topic

Your article should be about one of the keyword you've selected in the Edit Articles Module rather than a general article about your site's niche. In SiteBuilder Elite, each page created will be for one of the keywords in your list(s). This makes a page very focused on that keyword as it appears in the webpage name, metatags, and various section headers and links on the page. Writing an article around that keyword reinforces that page as being about that one keyword, and that's something the search engines like.

Keyword Stuffing Vs Using Related Terms

Don't keyword-stuff your article. If you've never heard that term before, it refers to putting several occurrences of the keyword into an article. This usually results in an article that doesn't read well, one where the language doesn't flow naturally. Use your keyword two or at most three times in the article, once in the first paragraph, once in the last paragraph and, if you must, once somewhere in the middle of the article. But don't use the keyword if it makes the text seem unnatural to read. Here's an example of using a keyword, "domain name" in this case, badly:

Anyone who wants to set up a website needs a domain name. A domain name can be bought at what's called a registar - a company where you register domain names. A domain name will cost you anywhere between $1.99 and $10.49 depending on the domain extension (.com, etc) and the deals on offer. GoDaddy is probably one of the best places to buy a domain name.

The "domain name" keyword is used 5 times in that one paragraph alone. Any reader will recognise that the "domain name" keyword is being over used and search engines are smart enough to spot keyword stuffing as well.

Marketers will spot that the author has keyword stuffed "domain name" into the article in an effort to get the page ranked higher in the search engines for the "domain name" keyword.

Here's a better way of writing that paragraph, one that reads more naturally:

Anyone who wants to set up a website needs a domain name. These can be bought at what's called a registar - a company that offers a  domain registration service. Domains will cost you anywhere between $1.99 and $10.49 depending on the extension (.com, etc) and the deals on offer. GoDaddy is probably one of the best known.

That reads much better. The "domain name" keyword is used only once. In addition, the paragraph includes these related terms: registrar, domain registration, domains, extension, GoDaddy. This helps the search engines better identify what the article is about and using them is a much better tactic than stuffing one keyword into an article.

The search engines have become smarter over the years and it's not difficult for them to identify a keyword-stuffed article. A simple keyword count will let them know what words are used and how often. You'd expect a highish count for common words like "the", "and", etc. but a high count for an uncommon phrase like "domain name" would raise flags. And the consequence is that the page showing that article won't be ranked as highly as one that doesn't use keyword stuffing.

PLR Articles

Many of you will be using PLR (Private Label Rights) articles on your sites. These are generally provided in text format though some sources may supply articles in Word's .DOC format. Those should be saved as .txt files from within Word and then opened up in Notepad before being copied and pasted into SiteBuilder Elite's Edit Articles Module.

PLR articles also usually include a blank line between paragraphs but if they don't, add them in yourself.

Some PLR articles will include a word count at the end of the article. These lines need to be manually deleted so they don't appear in your article.

It's always worth rewriting PLR articles. You only need to re-word the sentences already there so the articles become unique. Remember that PLR articles are made available to a couple of hundred people at a time so it pays to make them unique. Use an article spinning tool like The Best Spinner to create spun versions of yor articles which you can use on your site and submit to article directories and social networks to promote your site.

Using HTML In Your Articles

You can add in HTML code or use the edit features in the Edit Articles Module to enhance the look of your articles. This inlcudes adding headlines, links, bolding text, adding lists, changing colors, etc.

Using JavaScript in Your Articles:

You can also add JavaScript code snippets into your articles. This might include things like specific ads you want to display, videos, etc.

Things Not To Do:

Don't copy and paste the code for a page taken from some other site into your article. A common mistake is to include the , , and metatags in an article. This is a no-no. SBE adds these tags in itself and web browsers will be confused about how to display a page if they see the above tags at the top of the code for a page and further down the page as well (in your article).

Don't include the or tags in your article either. These tell a web browser where your page finishes. If they appear in your article, your page will be truncated at that point by the browser.

Warning: You are responsible for any HTML or JavaScript that you put into an article. SBE can only take what you provide and add it into a page. If you have included bad HTML or JavaScript code, it may cause your page not to display correctly. If that happens, your code is to blame, not SBE, and it's up to you to fix it.