Articles, this word just keeps springing up as soon as you mention getting up the natural search engine results or anything to do with search engine optimization or SEO. But why?

First we must understand why one website appears on the first page of Google while another containing similar subject matter is way down the ranks. It all comes down to popularity, if you have a very popular website you will have more chance of achieving a first page position on Google, Yahoo and MSN.

OK, so you now even more confused, how does Google decide if you are popular. Think of this in the same way as when you were at school, how did you know who the popular kids were, easy they were the ones with the most friends following them around. This is the same scenario on the web, but instead of friends your popularity is determined by the number of other websites that link to yours.

If you have thousands of other websites linking to your website, just like friends following you around the playground Google determines that your website is popular. If all these other websites are following you around then you must have some valuable and interesting content. This is where articles come in to it.

An article is a short information based document about a certain aspect of your chosen niche. Now before you start worrying again, you do not need to be an amazing author or writer too do this, all you need to know is something about your chosen niche. You may not realize it but you are already an expert.

Lets say you had a website about fishing, without too much thinking you could string together a few articles about fishing. To me, who is somebody who doesn’t know the first thing about fishing you would indeed be an expert.

There are lots of different ideas you can use to create your articles, you can create information articles, like the one you are reading that educate the reader. You can write a review about a new product you have used, or even a case study. Even if you think that your subject matter is boring there will many people in your niche that will enjoy it.

An typical article is made up from 3 main parts, the first is a headline. Try and chose an interesting headline that will get peoples attention. The second part is the actual content of your article, this is usually around 400 to 800 words. The third and final bit is your signature. This signature gives you opportunity to advertise your site, for example for a free 5 part email course on fishing please visit YourWebsite.com, try to offer benefits for visiting your site.

Once you have written your first articles you need to upload them to an article website such as Ezine Articles or Go Articles, once you have setup your free account, you are free to upload your articles. Once uploaded your articles they will be checked by the submission team and if you article meets their terms it will be published on their website. So this is the first website linking back to you, or if you will your first school yard friend.

Now this where the true power of articles starts. Many other website in your chosen niche are looking for free content to use on their sites, they can take your articles from the articles site and use it own their own. They must however leave your signature. This means that if you have an article on a article site that is then used on another 20 website you will have 21 links pointing back at your website.

This has multiple benefits, for each article you write you may get multiple links back to your site, the exact number depends on your article but anywhere from tens to thousands. The other benefit, is that with your content spread wide and far across the web you are highly likely to get people visiting your site who have read your article on another website and want to find out more.

If you want to spread your articles even further I suggest you check out this neat tool that lets you submit your articles to 680 articles sites and directories at the touch of button, the best parts its FREE. You can download it from Free Article Submitter