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Before you worry about adding keywords to the body of the article, go ahead and write it first in your own words. It doesn’t have to be long, just useful to the reader. Don’t waste their time with puffery or common knowledge. They may not return to your site.

So, what do you write about? Nearly everyone has some area of expertise or knowledge to share. You may just be surprised how much you know about a subject of interest to you that others don’t. Be sure that the information supports the main theme of your site. If you’re selling sporting goods supplies don’t write about crocheting a hat. Croquet yes. Crochet, no. Stay focused.

A good way to approach an article is to “tell them what you’re going to tell them”, “tell them”, and then “tell them what you told them”. This is the basic Introduction-Body-Summary strategy that is the foundation of all good writing.

Now, on to the keywords and how to use them in your article. Once you have drafted the content, go back through it and see where you can add keywords or substitute them for other words you’ve used. Try to get your first keyword into the first 90 characters of the article. Then use it two to five more times in the rest of the article, but not more. If you use a specific keyword too often in a short article, the search engines may think you’re spamming. Don’t use keywords for the sake of using them. If the addition makes the information less clear, don’t use it.

How do you find the keywords? This is where a good keyword research tool can prove invaluable. There you can enter different keywords and see how they stack up with known user patterns on different search engines. Try different combinations of words to see how the results change. And look at the related keywords that are offered to you. Choose the best three to five related keywords and use them along with your primary keyword.

Experiment. Don’t despair if your first attempts to write keyword-laden articles don’t increase your rankings in the search engines. You may have to massage the article several times before it will work the way you want it to.

Don’t stop at one. Once you finish an article and load it into your site, write more of them. Search engines love sites that have lots of good content. The more information you have on your site (again, it needs to be useful content), the better. However, be careful that you don’t plagiarize another site. Be original.

Go beyond your site. If you’ve taken the time to write an article about a subject of broad interest, consider offering it to other sites that cover that topic. A lot of sites will be more than happy to add your article to their site, give you a byline and a link back to your website. Don’t bother with the big boys such as Fortune, Business Week or USA Today. Instead, aim for the smaller niche sites that focus on your industry or subject matter.

Should you hire a professional? Unfortunately, not everyone is a whiz when it comes to writing. For many, a trip to the dentist for a root canal would be a holiday compared to putting words down on paper. If you do want to bring in a professional who’s versed in writing search-optimized copy, there are lots of avenues for hiring writers. You can post copywriting jobs on sites such as guru.com, elance.com or sologig.com, all of which represent freelance writers who will bid on your project and create SEO friendly articles according to your specifications.