Creating an entertaining and educating article, while still keeping it search engine friendly, isn't as difficult as it sounds. Although you need to make sure there are certain keywords in there that cover the niche you're writing about, this doesn't mean your article needs to read like a Webmaster's thesaurus. As long as you know what you're writing about, and understand the basics of search engine optimization, you'll be fine.

The key to remember is that, at the end of the day, people are still going to read your article. So even though you need it to be optimized for the various search engines, it still needs to read naturally and flow smoothly. And to be honest, the very best SEO-friendly articles are the ones that you don't even realize are optimized. So what's the secret?

Be Passionate About Your Subject

Although it's true that if you're a decent writer you can write about anything, it's a natural process that if you're passionate or believe in the subject you're writing about it will read so much better. So, if you have a love of golf and you're asked to write about the history of golf balls, it will probably be a better read than an article you write about steam trains.

Knowing your subject also allows you to write far better optimized content. The reason for this is simple - people don't realize it, but they talk in optimized ways every day. Whenever you use a phrase to describe something, that's a keyword phrase right there - the difference is that it's being spoken as opposed to typed into a search engine. Example: you go to a clothes store and tell the salesperson you're looking for a red flowing chiffon summer dress. Type that very same phrase into a search engine, and you'll get a list of stores similar to the brick and mortar one you shop in. So you see, SEO is easier than many people try and tell you it is.

Latent Keywords

The other secret to writing enjoyable and educational SEO-friendly articles is knowing how latent keywords work (also known as long tail keywords). This is where you play around with the structure of the keyword so that it appears more natural. For example, if you want to write an article using "fishing trips", it would soon get pretty boring just using that keyword phrase time and time again. And it would also be so obvious that all you're trying to do is get so many keywords into the article.

However, if you expanded on that phrase, and placed it more naturally into a sentence, you'd get the same result but without boring your prospective readers. So instead of just using "fishing trips", you might say "there are some wonderful trips, including fishing and deep sea angling", or "many getaway trips, fishing or otherwise..." As you can see, you're still using the keyword phrase, just not as obviously. And as long as you're keeping the keyword phrases within a word or two of each other, it doesn't matter that you split them up.

So there you have it - you don't have to speak gobbledygook to write an article rich in keywords. As long as the text is flowing and you're still using the keywords in the right places, you can have an SEO-friendly and educational and entertaining article!