Ideally, the articles we write should contain between 400 - 700 words with our keyword phrase occuring between 2-5% of the time. This is a good number to work between as 400 words give you the opportunity to properly optimize your keyword phrase, and setting the limit to 700 words will prevent you from wasting too much time on each article.

Remember, your article should consist of purely informative information, with no salescopy whatsoever. Your goal here is to gain Keyword Authority and Page Rank. Now, say that you wish to gain Keyword Authority under the keyword phrase "pet tropical fish". You could structure your article as follows -

Title: "How to care for and feed your pet tropical fish"

Body: Provide informative information about caring for pet tropical fish (research the internet to find information about this subject if you don't know it yourself). Repeat the keyword phrase "pet tropical fish" between 2-5% of the time without sounding too spammy. I personally aim for only 2%, as the keyword optimization here isn't that important, and I find anything higher begins to sound spammy.

About the Author: You include this at the end of your article. This is the most important section of your article, and is what will contain the backlink to your targeted web page. Remember, don't advertise yourself or any product. Your only goal here is to create a link back to your web page that consists of anchor text containing the keyword phrase you've optimised the article under. An example of a good "about the author" section would be as follows -

About the Author: "Steven Zero is a researcher of tropical fish, and maintains a website about breeding pet tropical fish."

Notice that my About the Author section contained no incentive whatsoever for anyone to click on the link? I didn't advertise the site, because I don't really care if anyone clicks on it or not. The sole purpose of me writing this article is to create a relevant backlink from the article directories I've submitted it to, not to get clicks on my link.

The backlink is relevant because it meets the criteria of a relevant backlink as was explained in the Keyword Authority section. Whilst the article directory I submit the article to may not have any authority on tropical fish, the actual web page itself of the article will be optimized for the keyword phrase "pet tropical fish". Furthermore, the anchor text link to my web page contains the keyword phrase "pet tropical fish". So we are meeting at least two of the three things we can do to obtain Keyword Authority, without being in the slightest bit spammy.