Archive for April, 2010
Web Copywriting – The Advantages of Using a Freelance Copywriter
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Article mills are the bane of the internet, fueling the low wage, low quality web copywriting culture
Search engines, the driving force behind internet habits, are moving towards promoting high quality web copywriting. Rather than reward businesses that flood the internet with sub-standard articles, the search engines are adapting their algorithms to promote high-quality content and rid the internet of the spammers and empty articles.
Because marketers became fixated upon generating backlinks, to the detriment of providing quality web content, businesses used cheap freelance writers to produce countless keyword dense articles, often written in barely passable English. Internet users are sick and tired of trying to find useful information online, only to be confronted by empty content sourced from the notorious article mills. They want to find what they need, quickly and efficiently, without navigating seas of thinly disguised sales copy and painfully poor articles.
The big search engines are aware of this, and they know that consumer power can make or break their market position; they must adapt or die. The same applies to any business with an online marketing strategy; they must start to produce quality content or be left behind in the sandbox as the competition forges ahead.
Instead of going for the cheapest option, now is the time to use a professional freelance copywriter, who will be able to guide you through the transition. In hard economic times, as the advertisers focus on quality rather than saturation, the businesses producing quality will be the survivors when the internet content bubble finally bursts.
Investing in a Freelance Copywriter for Web Copywriting
Many business owners are happy to pay professional marketers and web designers good rates to promote their business, but are strangely reluctant to pay fees for a professional writer. They shop in the bargain basement and try to find freelance writers for a few dollars an hour, yet expect high-quality content. In the vast majority of cases, this approach fails. Content is king, and racing to the bottom reflects badly on your business.
The fast moving nature of the online world means that you only have a few seconds to impress potential clients and, if you confront them with poorly written content, written in poor English and with no direction to the writing, consumers will click the back button on their browser. The high rates that you paid for a marketing consultant have been wasted, all because you tried to save a few dollars. A freelance copywriter knows how to use subtle language to close the deal and entice consumers to spend time browsing your site and seeing what you have to offer.
A professional freelance copywriter will work alongside your marketers and is fully aware of the SEO techniques required to reach out to clients. A pro writer can take keywords and blend them seamlessly into flowing paragraphs and elegant prose. Search engines love high quality web copywriting and, by using a freelance writer as part of your marketing team, you can outperform other businesses still stuck in the old mentality of quantity over quality.
Your highly paid SEO marketing consultant love talented web copywriters, because it makes their life much easier. High quality, natural web content is much easier to promote than keyword soup and, if they are paid by the hour, this will also impact on your bottom line, saving you money. A marketing consultant given good content can concentrate on what they do best; helping your site climb the search engine rankings, rewarding your policy of hiring the best writer that you can find.
A Freelance Writer is a Deal Closer
Internet users are becoming very sophisticated and wary of the many fraudulent websites and products plaguing the internet. Amongst other things, they look at the quality of your website as a benchmark of quality, using it to gauge your product, professionalism, and customer service.
Marketers go out and find potential clients; a talented web designer uses eye-catching, slick designs to convince then to stay; and high quality content, written by a professional freelance copywriter, closes the deal. Using this trirumvate is the key to success, built upon the tried and tested sales techniques that existed long before the dawn of internet shopping.
As an example, I recently browsed the internet to look for some new door fittings, and was disgusted by the sheer amount of poor quality articles online, thinly disguised sales pitches that consisted of a couple of paragraphs written in poor, broken English.
Do these businesses seriously think that I am going to visit their site if they cannot be bothered to act professionally? By trying to save money, they lost a sale, all because they tried to write their own content or hired an enthusiastic amateur.
Web Copywriting – The Flexibility and Professionalism of a Freelance Copywriter
An experienced, skilled web copywriter is a professional with years of training and experience, so you are not going to find one for a few dollars an hour. In the same way, you will not find an accountant, marketer, lawyer, or mechanic for that rate. These professionals are fully aware of their value and set their prices accordingly.
So, why do businesses begrudge paying freelance writers a decent rate? They have been swayed by the article mills and content submission sites, and believe that you really can find a writer for cents. Sadly, in most cases, they end up with poorly written content, with little power, passion, or authority behind the copy or, in the worst cases, plagiarized content copied from other sites.
Freelance copywriters are hired guns, able to refresh marketing campaigns and imbuing them with life and honesty. Professional; freelance writers understand the world of internet marketing and can integrate seamlessly into your team, providing valuable insights and ideas on how to reach a wider audience. Most of all, they make sure that your web copywriting compels and projects your core values and integrity.
The question isn’t about whether you can afford to hire a freelance copywriter for your web copywriting. The question is can you afford not to?
Internet Article Marketing Strategy – Unleashing the True Power of Article Directories
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Internet Article Submission is the Stairway to Success
Most businesses working online have heard of article directories, such as Ezine, and are aware that a good internet article marketing strategy must incorporate the potential of these sites. The idea behind article directories is elegant in its simplicity; you submit articles, and others are free to use them and distribute them around the internet, on the condition that they include backlinks to your site.
Article directories are well known by webmasters and marketers, who understand that a high-quality article site gives good quality backlinks and instant kudos with Google. Many of these flood the sites with spun content, hoping to gain an advantage in the search engine rankings.
Internet Article Marketing Strategy and Backlinks – An Unhealthy Fixation
Many of these marketers outsource work, use article-spinning software, or hire cheap freelance writers to generate content. This attitude is fine if you are chasing Adsense and affiliate sales, where you might get away with broken English and stilted, non-natural writing. However, this paradigm has leached over into mainstream marketing, and there is now a prevailing attitude that it is not worth paying a professional writer to submit quality content to article sites.
I have seen many articles, on Ezine, where the business owner has tried to hack some copy together, or has outsourced the work to the notorious article mills. They then sit back, waiting for the clients to roll in, and are surprised when this approach fails. The problem with this plan is that they became fixated on one aspect of article marketing, backlinking, and failed to understand the true power of using article directories as part of an internet article marketing strategy.
Basing Your Internet Article Marketing Strategy around Quality
Stepping away from online marketing for a while, think about what type of strategy you use in the real world. Most businesses, if they want to generate good business, focus their efforts on producing high-quality brochures and postcards, and delivering them to targeted areas.
Moving back online, that is the same type of approach that you should adopt with your internet article marketing campaign and you should see your articles as more than a cheap source of backlinks. Articles can actually form the backbone of your marketing strategy and drive high-quality traffic to your website. Using article submission directories as glorified link-farms misses the potential of two other marketing methods; direct referrals and organic growth.
The Power of Direct Referrals and your Internet Article Marketing Strategy
Sites such as Ezine, with its very stringent quality controls and human editors, are loved by the search engines. As a result, an SEO optimized Ezine article will often appear higher on search-engine rankings than your actual site. If you use them alongside informational sites, such as Hubpages, you will be able to dominate Google search results for targeted keywords.
As a result of this search engine impact, potential clients are likely to land there first and, if your articles are filled with empty-content, they are not going to click on the link. If you want to use article to their fullest potential, you need to treat them as if they were content on your own site; they are often the point of first contact and you must make an instant impression.
Making the Internet Work for You – Organic Links Keep on Giving
If you do your keyword research and manage to get your Ezine article onto the front pages of the search engines, then there is one other benefit of using a professionally written article. If the article is well written, then others are likely to pick it up and use it, which will include the carefully embedded links to your site. Apart from giving you a little more Google love, through organic backlink growth, this also increases your reach and the chance of direct referrals.
With a powerfully written, informative article, others are going to do the marketing for you, by distributing your links around the internet. This is the true power of article marketing sites, not the vague idea of building a few backlinks. There are other ways of building Google backlink love, and using article-marketing sites purely for this purpose is missing out on their true power. With a good, high-quality article, the backlinks will multiply, without any extra effort or expense.
Using a Professional Writer as the Foundation of your Internet Marketing Strategy
If you look at many of the article sites, you will see that many of the articles are merely sales pitches, consisting of two or three hundred words of clumsy language. Most people do not understand the art of writing web content and articles, which requires the careful touch of a master craftsman.
if you intend to sell something online, then going for the cheap option is a non-starter; you might think that you have a great deal by finding a reasonably competent writer, who will throw out articles at $5 a time. If this does not increase sales conversions, or the articles migrate into the Google sandbox, then you have thrown that money away.
A professional writer has the ability to write an article, seemingly about an unrelated subject, but use layered content and language to guide the reader gently down to the link at the bottom. Article sites invariably include your link at the bottom of the page, so you have to make sure that the content is well written and informative, enticing the reader down to the final paragraph and the all-important link.
