Writing articles that are read and seen is a bit of an artform; there are both technical tricks and tips, along with some things which have to be learned by putting in plenty of practice.
There is no simple straight answer, and unless you are lucky, all involve a bit of research and time. Applying all the techniques, then refining and repeating will improve the status of an article–and having gotten the first step right, each push will bring it closer to a "critical mass". Keeping the pressure up with the techniques below, without being spammy and repetative, is not easy but does bring results and improvements in views and rank.
Choosing a topic
First I would suggest to pick the topic well. Look at things that are always popular, as well as up-and-coming or seasonal topics. Seasonal topics will do well during the run up to a season, and may explode then, but will probably get little traffic for the rest of the year. Up-and-coming topics may be good for one explosion once and then continually wane - these are a bit risky since if your article does not gain momentum before the subject is old news, it may never gain it.
Things that are always popular, with a serious niche following are great - they have a possibility to explode, get passed around a bit, rattling through social networks and then have a long tail of consistent traffic. These are generally the ones that are most worth investing in.
The topic should also be well focused and not vague or too broad. Choosing a niche will help to focus the content and mean that it is very relevant.
As an example, the topic "computers" is very broad, and very vast. However "Windows Video Editing Software Buyers Guide" is quite niche - very specific. If a title for your topic is less than this specific, it is perhaps too broad a subject.
Ensure the topic is something you know well and have some passion for - a dull or information poor article will not gain many views.
Keywords and Content
The next thing is to think about keywords and content. Good keywords that are relevant to the topic, along with good content which references the keywords, will give both readers and search engines a reason to have interest in your content. A keyword that is only in a tag but never mentioned counts for little; conversely, a keyword that is mentioned so much it is obvious spamming makes content unpleasant to read and most search engines will push down such content. So choose keywords you will use, and write paragraphs that use them in a sensible and meaningful way. Using keywords in titles and links out to other things will also raise the relevance of these and the perceived usefulness of the content.
Good keywords should actually be closer to small phrases, not just single words; consider that the niche topic may be best summarised in a few words–if one single word describes it, perhaps it is too broad.
Going back to the example of the computers topic, if the keywords you choose are:
- Windows
- Video
- Software
- Computer
You are unlikely to get close to the top page of any search engine on these keywords. However with keywords like:
- Video Editing Software
- Buying video editors
- Windows Video Editors
- Video Editor Buyers Guide
You are more likely to be looking at a niche. Even a relatively well-occupied niche has more room than a very broad topic.
Build Links and Relationships
A good topic does not stand alone. You are likely to have others in the chosen niche, which you can either view as competition or collaborative sources. Either way, for readers, social networks and search engines to show interest in a topic, there should be links into it. Google page rank is driven more by the number of relevant links into your article than most other criteria. Spammy link farms do not count, though - it needs to be a fairly suitable place to link from too.
For gaining links in, a number of things should be done. Most importantly is to engage. Go and find blogs, forums and other articles on your topic. Collect links for them (which you can use in your own article), then leave comments - make sure they are relevant, and link back to your article. If your article has the exact answer to a question or you could add that in and it have it be relevant to your niche, then it is perfect. I do not advise going onto a forum and posting your link everywhere, but I do advise participating a little more than just your one link otherwise this may, at best, impact your credibility–and at worst, have you banned from them. For individual blog authors and so on, offer to exchange links. Be clear on follow/nofollow tag usage, what keywords/title you want on the link and they on theirs, and negotiate. Through this method, I have ended up with an article about a game being linked to from the front page for the game.
Find sites with link submission and specific categories that match your content - a well-researched one of these that carries a link to your page can bring many readers.
As mentioned in the section above, keywords gain weight when used in the text for a hyperlink out of your page. So even if you have something you may view as a traffic leak (using the target tag may prevent it being that), it does improve the relevance of your topic. Placed strategically, you can also ensure that readers to not link out from your page before they have seen at least some of your hard work.
Writing another article on the same niche or a very similar niche, perhaps taking another aspect of the niche and linking between them, will improve the page rank and reader interest on both. For the example article first mentioned above, another article detailing specific usage help and tips for one piece of video software for Windows would be an ideal companion. The more you write, the better. Even better if they are on different domains/sites (factoidz, squidoo, hubpages etc). Do not forget to link all the related ones together. You can even then create a niche page that has links to all the others as a portal to the others too.
Also, go onto social networks such as twitter, and engage people on discussions around your topic. You may find that your engagement at the very least gets a few reads, but it may actually go on to be re published (retweeted or similar) to their followers and so on. Having a story do the rounds on a network because you hit the right group with a relevant topic with good content can drive thousands of hits!
