What Do You Get When You Spend $1 on an Article?
Posted on December 12, 2011 by Pure Ink | Leave a comment
There are thousands of companies and individuals on the web offering copywriting for the not so princely sum of a few dollars a website or a dollar or less for an article. With business being so tough at the moment it’s easy to see why companies are tempted by these cheap prices and use this content as the basis of their link building campaign or even use it on their website. However, low quality content has become SEO suicide and many SEO experts recommend companies should avoid investing in high quantities of poor quality content and instead focus on creating interesting content worth sharing.
These developments show that the search engines are beginning to think more like people do. For example, if the sole purpose of an article is to get links back to a website then it’s unlikely to be an interesting read which will be talked about and shared online. We didn’t want to make assumptions though and thought it would be worth seeing what you actually get when you spend a dollar on an article. We went undercover and asked for a sample article from a non UK based SEO copywriting company. The article is based on ladies’ shoes and here’s a snippet from it…
“Women take great care of their feet, applying all types of foot products. Likewise, they pay close attention to the kinds of shoes they wear. Ladies shoes are of special importance to a lady because they complement her outfit. For some ladies, their shoes are not just accessories, but the most important part of their outfit and they use ladies shoes to make a unique style statement.”
The article continues to talk about general features of women’s shoes including the rather saucy insight of “the right shoes can enhance the way a woman walks and transform a simple strolling walk into a sexy, hip rolling gait.” The article then goes on to describe heels and that these range from, “flat soles to pointed stiletto heels to 4-inch platform heels,” and then talks about the benefits of buying shoes online.
Overall this article is not badly written and although there are a few errors in grammar, it’s not the barely readable copywriting you might expect from a dollar article. However, the problem with this article is that it really doesn’t say anything. The keywords are obviously ‘women’s shoes’ and ‘ladies’ shoes’ and the article has clearly been primarily written for the search engines and not readers. The article is so general that in 400 words it doesn’t actually say anything which might be useful to a reader.
General articles like this are highly unlikely to be shared by anyone online, which means the chances of your company name reaching new audiences is slim. If your article isn’t shared then you won’t receive natural links back to your website which can help your search engine optimisation. Articles like this example go against Google’s recommendations for quality content, two of which recommendations are below.
- “Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines.”
- “Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?””
When you write articles with real people in mind and not the search engines (although all your articles should include relevant keywords) you will be far more inclined to share relevant, interesting and unique content with your readers.
If you’re not sure where to start with these articles, see our quick checklist below.
How to Write a Million Dollar Article
- Write about what you know
Your knowledge about your industry can form the basis of brilliant articles and all you have to do is write about what you know. No matter what industry you work in, if you have valuable information which will educate and interest your online audience then sharing this is one of the best ways to create articles for your website.
- Interview people
If there’s a prominent figure in your industry then see if you can arrange to interview them and get their take on a current issue. You can then write this up as a straightforward news story or include your own thoughts on the story in the article as well.
- Round up the news
There’s so much information on the web that your customers can easily lose track of what’s happening in your industry. A weekly article rounding up the most prominent news stories can be a really useful resource to your customers.
- Be opinionated
Shout about what you’re passionate about in an article and let your readers know your stance on a particular topic. This could be in relation to something in the news which has angered you or something about your industry which you love and want to share.
- Survey your industry
Survey results are a superb basis for an article as you’ll have solid statistics to base your copywriting on. Free software such as Survey Monkey makes it easy to survey people and collect information.
If you’re struggling to put an article together then contact the expert copywriters at Pure Ink as we’re happy to help you produce content worth sharing.
Posted in Article Writing Content Writing Tips Copywriting