Archive for article directories
What Do The Latest Google Algorithm Changes Mean to Freelance Writers?
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Currently, the world of internet marketing is in a state of mass panic as the latest Google algorithm changes, designed to punish content farms, affect the search engine rankings. Stories of huge drops in page views dominate marketing and SEO forums across the world, as webmasters complain that Google has it wrong and is incorrectly punishing quality content. Naturally, everything is speculative and things may well change as the process settles down, but with livelihoods at stake, the paranoia levels are high.
Even on well-respected sites such as Hubpages, writers and marketers are reporting significant drops in page views, often as much as 50%, and this threatens to wipe out income for many affiliate marketers and writers. It seems that Google has decided to attack the love-in with some of the article sites, downgrading those it perceives as having too much spammy or scraped content.
For myself, income from advertising and affiliate links to Amazon, are secondary; I like the extra payment every month, but my main business is as a hired gun, producing quality content for others.
However, the picture is not that simple and Google algorithm changes can indirectly affect freelance writers. Our fortunes are largely tied to the fortunes of marketers, the lifeblood of the internet, because much of our business stems from that source.
Freelance Writing and the Double Edged Blade of Google
For freelance writers, the changes could be a double-edged sword. The good news is that, if Google is finally delivering on its promise to promote quality content, then good writing will come at a premium and online businesses will happily pay decent money to hire a professional writer. They know that they will receive an excellent return on their investment if their high quality content rises up the rankings.
The downside is that we could see an influx of disenchanted marketers online. Many will see their earnings collapse and decide that the only way to survive is to work as freelance writers, flooding the freelance writing sites and tendering ridiculously low bids.
A similar influx happened a couple of years ago, when oDesk advertised on Good Morning America, with the net result that hundreds of recently unemployed people flooded the site. Freelance writing rates plummeted as desperate people were prepared to work for food.
Will Quality Freelance Writing Rise to the Top?
This trend eventually righted as clients slowly began to realize that, if you pay a couple of bucks for an article, the chances are that you will receive badly written, rehashed crap spun from other sources.
There will always be bottom-feeders who will take advantage and offer 50 cents per article (I have seen that many times), but most clients do want good content, and a skilled professional writer is not going to offer that for free.
Freelance writing demands a different set of skills from writing a few articles online. Apart from the obvious traits, such as the ability to work to deadlines, you cannot pick and choose your topics and you sometimes have to be able to read the client’s mind. Having a computer fitted with Microsoft Office does not make you a freelance writer – it takes a lot more than that.
Google Algorithm Changes – We Await the Outcome
For now, we will have to wait and see what happens – this latest algorithm change from Google could well be a double edged-sword. I retain some optimism, as huge Google changes often take a while to settle down as the software engineers tweak their algorithm. I also believe that quality writing does rise to the top so, unless Google completely messes up, those of us who aim to produce quality will be successful in the long term.
Keep up with the latest developments on Sunforged’s Blog: Search and Marketing News
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.
