Most people can use the undernoted tips on article writing and advice on using article content properly. If you have a website, article content is very important to your online success and this is more true now than ever before since many people are shying away from costly methods of website promotion. There are many ways to promote a website and a product or a service, but few are as free as article marketing.

Free? I can hear you protest that article marketing isn't free because it costs money to have the articles written for you, and even more to have them submitted. However, what if you could write them yourself, understood the benefits of article content and knew how submit quickly to the top ten article directories that pass your articles through their network? Not so costly now, is it?

You might even think of investing in software that writes articles for you, or article spinners that create hundreds of articles from just one. That would be a grave error, because Google is wise to these and no matter what they claim, they don't work as they are claimed to. They can have negative results, so you are advised to learn how to write articles naturally and effectively.

Writing articles isn't difficult if you understand a few simple rules, and submitting them is even easier. Get it wrong, though, and you not only waste your time, but could also lose your reputation. Here are some tips on article writing

An article consists of seven basic parts, each of which will be discussed here, and they can be used in two fundamental ways: as content for your own website or for distribution to article directories.

1. The Purpose

Why are you writing the article? Is it to provide information? To make money? To show what you know? Generally it will be a combination of each of these, but you must have a purpose, and write with that purpose clearly in your mind.

2. The Keyword

The keyword has to be selected carefully, because it is the basis of the whole article. It must relate to the topic and be likely to be used by people searching for what you are offering, but with as few other sites using it as possible. There are ways of finding such keywords but that is another topic.

3. The Title

The title must contain our keyword, and preferably also a secondary keyword related to the first. It should state clearly the subject of the article, and persuade somebody scanning g down a list of articles to read it.

4. The Opening Paragraph

This is one of the more important of the tips on article writing, yet you will not find it in many lists like this one. The opening paragraph will either retain the reader's interest, and keep them reading or they will leave to find something better.

5. The Article Content

The body of the article is what shows your expertise in your niche or subject, and should be written according your purpose. With articles written for article distribution, and to persuade the reader to click to your website, your purpose is to persuade the reader that you know your subject, and that they would be safe to visit your website for more information - just as I am hopefully doing now.

6. The Author's Resource

This is where you make your final case and offer your link for them click. The link must lead the reader to a page on your site directly related to the article. Don't write an article on dog obedience and lead them to your page on dog breeds. Dog obedience would be appropriate.

7. The Summary

Many article directories request a summary of your article content with which to lead up the published article. This should be a basic pr?cis of the sense of what have written, and not just a copy of your first paragraph.

There is one final aspect of article writing that I have not covered: keyword density and Google's latent semantic indexing (LSI) algorithm. Ignore these at your peril: Google punishes excessive keyword repetition and a lack of vocabulary semantically related to the context in which the article keyword is used.

These tips on article writing can only scratch the surface, but provide a very basic outline of the factors you have to take into consideration when writing article content. An article could be written on every one of them individually.