Content and Article Writing

If you’re thinking of article marketing as writing a single article and submitting it to dozens of directories then, no, article marketing does not work. If you try those black hat techniques with article spinners and auto-submitters in today’s world of intelligent consumers and competing search engines you’ll be wasting time and money. If you do some real article marketing with well written, quality articles that are submitted individually you’ll get better results.

Ezine Articles, the highest ranking article directory site according to Alexa, bans any author who tries to submit duplicate content. They also don’t allow submissions that are obviously self-promoting pieces of spam. To maintain their status as number one they need to have a higher standard than anyone else. They also use human editing, not robots, which gives a link from them heavier weight in search engine algorithms.

Hub Pages, Constant Content, Helium, and Squidoo are power sites where article submissions are worthwhile. When you do an analysis of your site a month after submitting to any of them the links will actually show up. There’s a general rule of thumb when it comes to article submissions, “If Google can’t see it you are wasting your time.” Connect your website to Google Webmaster tools and run analytics regularly. They may have some competition out there now but they are still the king of search and the authority on quality backlinks.

There has been some debate recently regarding the duplicate content penalty that is assessed by the search engines. Does it really exist? Is it temporary and if it is, how long does it last? If you want to know about duplicate content, check your website rank and then run a few articles through an auto-submitter or spinner. Your rank will not go up, it might go down, and the chances of any of those links showing up for analytics are pretty slim. Don’t take our word for it. Try it for yourself.

If you want to see some real results from article marketing, have one of our writers from Content and Article Writing put a few articles together for you and let us submit them somewhere manually where you’ll get some good out of them. Ezine links last forever and keep bringing you traffic long after you’ve posted the original article. Squidoo is a PR8 site where you can use articles to build lenses, Helium is PR6, Constant Content and Hub Pages are both PR5. That’s the kind of power rating you need to climb the search rankings to Page One, not a link from obscure directories that will accept any piece of junk that’s submitted. Contact us for more info about article writing any time.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of bringing your website from the depths of search engine obscurity to a position on the first page where consumers shopping for the product or service you have to offer will see you. This is done by submitting your website URL, or link, to other websites that are classified as directories or bookmarking sites. You can also do link exchanges with sites in your industry or other industries that compliment yours. If you do all of this properly you will attain a higher page position and rank with the search engines, provided you improve your content first.

The importance of content development for SEO cannot be over-emphasized. The number of backlinks you have will be a major factor in the assignment of page rank but if your content is not relevant you won’t climb to the top of your industry. There are plenty of companies out there who have the same number or more links than you do, so how do the search engines separate them? The answer is content. The search engine algorithms change often and are shrouded in secrecy but one thing that is known about them is that relevance and quality count pretty heavily.

Content is also directly related to your conversion rate. Being seen by consumers who want what you have to offer will bring you traffic. As you climb closer to search engine Page One you will see an increase in the number of visitors you have. Will your site convert when they get there? All of the traffic in the world does nothing for you if no one is buying anything. Once again, your content should be addressed first. Don’t build a boat that won’t float when you put the cargo on board.

As the web has expanded in the past decade the quality of the content has declined. When the search engines were growing up they ranked sites by the number of links they had without taking into account the quality of those links and the pages they led to. That has changed. Google and those that compete with them are battling for control of a multi-billion dollar search industry where the technology of size is no longer the most potent weapon available. Quality and relevance are leading the way with the more highly educated and informed consumers of today.

Content and Article Writing is a company that is dedicated to the improvement of content on the internet, not just for our clients but for everyone. As the competition for search traffic increases, the smaller players like Bing and Cuil are cutting into Google’s market share by offering more comprehensive and relevant content on their top pages. Links still count but the landing page they go to had better have something to say or you will end up lost in the depths of search engine obscurity.

If you’ve built a website for your business and you’re not using your blog, you are missing out on the benefits of one of the most powerful internet marketing tools you have at your disposal. A blog is an opportunity for you to post dynamic, fresh content that the search engines can index. As you post more content, you’ll see more traffic and get higher search page and position rankings.

So, what exactly is custom blog posting? Custom blog posting is professional writing done for your blog by the internet marketing expert scribes here at Content and Article Writing. Our writers know how to structure a blog post so that it is relevant content to both your human readers and the search engine robot spiders that review it. Keyword density is a big part of that formula and proper scheduling is another.

For most of our clients, we write a batch of eight to ten posts at a time and schedule them through the content management admin site of their blog to publish on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. The frequency and amount of posts we create are determined by the client. We also offer single posts, static content pages, and press releases to promote the blog, all composed using keywords that are targeted to the client’s specific industry.

As of February 1, 2010, Content and Article Writing is also offering free social media and RSS directory connections as part of our custom blog posting service for new clients. Connecting your blog to Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and Delicious will bring you the type of attention you need to be successful. We’ll also burn RSS feeds for you at Google Feedburner and post an icon on your blog so your customers can subscribe and hear what you have to say when you want to say it.

If you don’t have a blog attached to your website, use our Contact Us page and request more information about having us create one for you. You might also want to subscribe to this blog so you can stay current on everything we and our SEO partners are doing in the world of content development, article writing, and internet marketing.

I seem to be getting a lot of requests for press releases these days so I thought I’d throw a quick posting up explaining what the difference is between a press release and an article. Articles can be powerful tools to build links and get out information about you and your company, but press releases with great headlines are one of the most powerful vehicles you can use to promote a product or service.

Press releases are easy to write but require a fair bit of research if you want them done right. I read the client’s entire website before I write a word, then I pick out an offer or product that seems newsworthy and make a headline out of it. Clearance sales and new product lines are great for this. Sometimes the company itself is unique enough to make news. Regardless of the subject matter, the title and first sentence are critical to the success of the press release.

The body of content that follows that headline needs to be compact and filled with facts, figures and interesting reasons why someone would want to go to the website I am promoting. The word count is typically lower than in an article because I’m describing a product, service, or special offer, not trying to present a complete body of information. There should be at least one “call-to-action” command in there like “Go to www.thissiteisgreat.com right now for more information”. That may sound cheesy but you’d be surprised how much traffic a simple line like that will drive to a website.

That’s pretty much it. I put some contact info at the bottom and a FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE at the top and the press release is good to go. If you’re looking to give this service a try click here Contact Us About Press Releases

For those of you who still might think that content doesn’t matter, go to the Alexa Top 500 and take a look at the most recent ranking for MySpace. Rupert Murdoch’s once dominant social network dropped out of the top ten this week. It is now ranked at a lowly eleven on the internet power chart and it will most likely drop again soon. Why? They, like all the rest of Mr. Murdoch’s enterprises, don’t care about content.

That may sound like a simplistic view but if you look at MySpace you will see a lot of flashy images, some cool apps, some great music, and nothing anywhere that actually has anything to say about the merits of the site itself. The most writing you’ll see at MySpace is the “warning” you get when you try to click an outside link.

Compare this to Facebook, the number two most visited site on the internet. Facebook has content. Those who use it post real sentences structured into real paragraphs because that is what the site encourages. Just look at the descriptions when you go to the Alexa Top 500 page. MySpace simply says “social network”. Facebook says “A social utility that connects people, to keep up with friends, upload photos, share links and videos”.

If you look at the Alexa Top Ten today you’ll see websites and search engines that have quality content. This is not the Google algorithm. Alexa is an independent service that ranks sites according to number of visits. Users determine who is on top and who slips down to obscurity. MySpace is quickly dropping off the charts because people simply are not using it.

As a writer and an intelligent consumer I get insulted when someone tries to use a sensationalist headline and no substance to get my attention. Rupert Murdoch has been doing this for years with his newspapers and built a multi-billion dollar empire. I hope he saved his money, because those tactics aren’t working anymore, at least not on the internet. MySpace is pretty but I, like most internet users these days, prefer substance.