Why do I want to set things straight?

Because it may seem I have opposing views on it (and I like to think there are a couple of people, at least, who care)…

I’ve been quite vocal about my distaste for sausage-factory content:

• I’ve argued that if you pay peanuts to blog ghost-writers you get monkeys.
• I’ve argued that most article marketers are doomed to failure because they pay too little for their articles.
• I’ve argued (among other things) that the use of sausage-factory content is an unsustainable SEO practice (see comments — LANGUAGE WARNING).
• I’ve discussed why sausage-factory content undermines your conversion rate and bottom line.
• I’ve argued that writing content purely for search engines is not copywriting.
• I’ve publicly disagreed with Rand Fishkin and asserted that quality content is all-important in SEO.

And I’ve been quite vocal about what I think quality copy is, how to write it and why it’s worth more:

• I’ve explained why I charge so much for copy.
• I’ve written about how to write quality, respectful, positive, easy-to-read, engaging, compelling, effective copy.

Yet still I’ve publicly disagreed with Aaron Wall and asserted that sites using sausage-factory content should NOT be banned by Google.

So what do I really think?

1. I think webmasters and SEOs have every right to use sausage-factory content, and they should NOT be penalized by the search engines.
2. I think many aspiring copywriters (both good and bad) are often left with no choice but to take on low paying gigs. (I’ve been there.)
3. I think all sausage-factory content writers dislike writing sausage-factory content.
4. I think a lot of sausage-factory content is written by decent writers; it actually reads OK.
5. But I KNOW it’s impossible to write 2-3 original, thought-provoking, witty, insightful and/or persuasive 500-word articles in just 1 hour. Let alone to continue doing it all day, every day. (Try it yourself. Just for an hour. It’s not just about pretty prose; it’s about planning, researching, thinking, understanding, learning, extrapolating and communicating.)
6. I think that, as a result, the vast majority (if not all) of sausage-factory content is low value to readers. It’s fundamentally unoriginal, and never thought-provoking or truly interesting.
7. I think that because it’s low value, no-one will link to it (organically).
8. Consequently, I think the use of sausage-factory content is a fundamentally unsustainable SEO practice. It will never generate many natural editorial links from reputable, quality sites. And Google will naturally get better at identifying and devaluing poor quality content.
9. I think you get the copy you pay for. Expensive copy is generally better than cheap copy. Not because the writer is necessarily more skilled, but because a really cheap piece has to be written far too quickly.
10. I think you also get the copywriter you pay for. Expensive (busy) copywriters are generally better than cheap copywriters. They’ve typically been doing it longer, and they’re clearly delivering a valuable product to their clients (otherwise they wouldn’t be able to command such high fees). Sure, there are always exceptions to the rule, but over time, the market filters them out: Good cheap copywriters become good expensive copywriters, and bad expensive copywriters become bad cheap copywriters (or something else entirely).
11. I think successful business people view copy, like any other form of promotion, as an investment, not a cost.

And that’s all I have to say on the matter! (Until someone comments, of course… ;-)

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1) Matt MacIntosh — “I brought you a second Mothers Day gift…”

And here’s Matt’s blog post on the matter, which is quite entertaining in itself! Thanks Matt, great work!

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Rand’s problem attitude to content

This is the attitude I’m talking about:

“Those brands and sites that have… users invested in promoting their work are likely to be long term winners with little regard for comparative levels of content quality.”

(An ironic attitude, don’t you think, when Rand, himself, invests so much in quality content on his own site…?)

What if your social/viral/SEO budget is small?

Yes, a high ranking is about getting lots of “early-adopting, viral-sharing, people-connecting, idea-distributing users” to promote your site. But if your social/viral/SEO budget is small, how else will you get that to happen — and keep it happening — other than by creating good content?

What if your competitors have the same social/viral/SEO budget?

For that matter, even with a good social/viral/SEO budget, what happens when you’re competing against someone else with a comparable budget? I’d contend that, in the long term, the comparative level of content quality will be the real difference, not the individual clever (but often hit-and-miss) tactics along the way.

Good content, alone, isn’t enough

I’m not suggesting good content alone will (always) get you a high ranking; obviously your site has to be search-friendly, and people have to find out about your content. But without good content, you’ll have to invest more in ‘persuading’ people to link.

But for most businesses, it’s the real difference

No. All things being equal, for most businesses, quality content is a far more sustainable proposition than poor content. (Note that I’m not necessarily talking about outsourced content. And I’m not necessarily talking about the technical quality of your writing. I’m talking about the quality of what you have to say.)

Plus Google’s getting smarter

And let’s not forget, Google is on a never-ending quest to return quality search results. It’s already quite hard to trick it into thinking you have quality content when you don’t. Why continue down that road when it’s only going to become rockier? Google will get better at weeding out the poor quality, and you’ll spend more and more trying to game the system.

Conclusion

Obviously I know why Rand wants you to continue down that road (because he’ll profit when you do), but c’mon! It just doesn’t make sense to chase your tail trying to trick Google into thinking you’ve given it what it wants. Why not actually give it what it wants?

Quality.

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In this video, I discuss my top 10 tips for becoming a successful freelance copywriter. Not just writing tips, but business tips too.

My Top 10 Tips for Aspiring Freelance Copywriters from Glenn Murray on Vimeo.

Links to copywriting resources mentioned in the vid

• ShadowProtect PC backup solution for data & system
• Carbonite online backup solution for data
• My streamlined copywriting quoting process
• Robin Hobb: ‘The Farseer Trilogy’
• Anne Tyler
• John Irving
• Patrick Rothfuss (forgot to mention him)
• My SEO copy ebook, ‘Practical SEO Copywriting’
• My SEO ebook, ‘SEO Secrets’

Please comment if you have any questions

Obviously there’s only so much I can cover in a vid post, so if you have any freelance copywriting questions, please feel free to ask. You can either comment here or send me an email (although I definitely prefer a comment, so my answers can help everyone).

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SEO Secrets — USD $79.95 $10

Use discount code “mumseosecrets” after you click Add to Cart.

‘SEO Secrets’ is a 212 page, comprehensive DIY search engine optimization (SEO) guide for small business owners, bloggers and SMB marketers. It details a practical 10-step process that will get you to the top of Google. It’s more than tips & tricks, and more than advice. It’s a comprehensive process you can start implementing NOW. Learn more about SEO Secrets…

Practical SEO Copywriting — USD $39.97 $10

Use discount code “mumseocopy” after you click Add to Cart.

‘Practical SEO Copywriting’ is pretty much the sum-total of what I know about SEO copy. Not just the theory, but the practice. How to do it right. How to handle the difficulties. And most importantly, how to balance the needs of Google against the needs of your human readers. Learn more about Practical SEO Copywriting…

If you’re buying both ebooks (pay $20 instead of $119)

Here’s how to use both discount codes:

1. Click Add to Cart for the first book
2. Enter its discount code
3. Click Update Cart
4. Switch back to this page
5. Click Add to Cart for the second book
6. Enter its discount code
7. Click Update Cart

Your total will be USD $20.

Oh, and if you actually give it to mum, you might get your money back…

Let’s make this a little fun. I’ll give you your money back if you:

1. Film yourself giving the book to mum, explaining what it is, and explaining why you’re giving it to her.
2. Then you post that footage on your blog. (And I certainly wouldn’t say no to a link back to my site!!!)
3. And let me know about it!

Enjoy. And say “Happy Mothers Day” to your mum for me!

UPDATE: See the vids

Here’s a blog post containing the vids of some very ‘lucky’ mums getting an SEO ebook for Mothers Day…

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If you’re not already doing this (or worse, you’re still relying on keyword density), you should find this screencast useful.

Using Word Clouds for SEO: Ensuring your web copy is appropriately optimized from Glenn Murray on Vimeo.

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“If paid links that subverts [sic] search relevancy algorithms shouldn’t count on the web graph, then why should Google trust paid content that subverts search relevancy algorithms?”

Aaron is concerned specifically with the recent USA Today / Demand Media deal, which will see thousands of what he calls ‘backfill’ articles placed on the USA Today website. He urges Google to crack down on this approach before “…the search results start filling up with similar sounding misinformed content ranking for 1 then 3 then 8 of the top 10 search results”.

If you’ve read any of my previous rants, you’ll know I’m no fan of crap / filler content. But I still can’t say I agree with Aaron here. You see, unlike paid links, which (supposedly*) present a black and white case of ’subverting search relevancy’, the paid content situation is a little less clear cut.

• Is a site subverting search relevancy just because it uses paid content? I certainly hope not! Most sites contain paid content — whether the webmaster paid a copywriter, incentivized a guest-blogger or syndicated a paid journalist. Even if they just got their web designer to write the copy. For that matter, the design, itself, is a form of content, and just about every website uses paid design.
• Or do they have to be using a content farm to be penalized? (And to be fair, content farms are the main target of Aaron’s post.) Trouble there is, how does Google decide what constitutes a ‘content farm’? Is a single copywriter a content farm? What if I write really quickly? What if I employ other copywriters? What if I outsource to other copywriters? What if I outsource to journalists? What if I outsource to would-be copywriters and journalists? Is a big web development company a content farm? They regularly outsource copy to people like myself (and probably you). If the job’s big, they ask me / you to call in other copywriters, or they engage numerous copywriters, directly, to get it done.
• Or do you get penalized only if your quality is crap? I checked out a few of USA Today / Demand Media’s articles (here’s one), and they were… OK. Nothing earth-shattering (or link-worthy), but they definitely weren’t auto-generated, nor were they written by someone with absolutely no writing or English skills. They were mildly helpful (if a little boring and simplistic) ’step-by-step’ articles. What’s more, they were no worse than the non-paid mildly helpful ’step-by-step’ / ‘10-things…’ articles found on competing media websites (like this USNews.com inhouse mashup, or this by an NBC columnist).

Ultimately, what USA Today is doing is no different from what other media sites (and non-media sites) are doing: they’re paying for content. Some of it may be crap, but some of the content on other sites is crap too (including their stories, however well written!).

Aaron asks:

“How will Google be able to filter out the Demand Media content without filtering out the rest of the media sites?”

My answer is that it shouldn’t even try. Google should be concerning itself with identifying relevance and quality, based, not on the source of the information, but on the information itself. And let’s face it; if Google does outlaw ‘content farm’ arrangements, those arrangements will simply go underground**, and Google will be forced to assess each case on its merits (relevance and quality).

I think Aaron’s over-reacted a little to the situation. If USA Today publishes crap articles:

1. Readers will stop reading; and
2. Google will figure out that the articles are crap, and — solid domain authority notwithstanding — will deal with them appropriately.

Anyway, I have to go and write some paid content for a client now. I hope Google’s not reading…

* Some paid links do, in fact, provide value to readers, and should not be devalued or lead to penalty. For example, I gladly link to a variety of products and services, and I only ever link to things that I believe in. My readers benefit, whether or not I make money when they click on these links (which I don’t).

** You may argue that Google successfully outlawed paid links, but people are still making money from links. The deals have just gone underground.

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So yes, you’re far better off writing your own product descriptions.

Don’t worry, it’s not as scary as it sounds!

I know that sounds scary, especially if you have a big catalog. But it doesn’t have to be that scary. Whether you write them yourself, or you engage an SEO copywriter to do it (not me, as I’ll have to charge too much), the key to streamlining is knowing what you want to say.

Questions to ask yourself before writing your product descriptions (or having someone else write them)

For each product, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the product?
• What benefit does it promise for the reader?
• Do you have any stats, research, photos or testimonials to validate this claim?
• What are its noteworthy features, and can you supply information about them?
• What variations are available (e.g. colors, sizes)?
• How would your reader achieve their objectives without this product?
• What makes this product better than competing products?
• Why should readers buy from you and not some other retailer of the same product?
• Do you know of any barriers to sale that might make a reader less likely to buy from you?
• Can you think of any other questions a reader might ask themselves while reading your copy and/or thinking about this product?
• What is the call to action for this page (i.e. what do you want the reader to do immediately after reading this page? Call you? Email you? etc.)
• Primary Keyword Phrase for this page (for SEO)
• Secondary Keywords for this page (for SEO)

Note that I’m assuming you know your reader and your brand personality, etc.

Once you have answers to all the above questions, you’ll find most SEO copywriters will be far less daunted by the task. Although it’ll always be a high-volume job, at least you have your information together, and THAT is the key to a happy copywriter. If you don’t, there’s no way they can complete the job in an efficient and hassle-free way, which means they’ll either do it badly, stop doing it, or charge you more than you bargained for.

SEO Copywriters who can help you write your product descriptions

Below is a list of SEO copywriters who can help with your product descriptions.

(SEO copywriters, please comment: If you’re a genuine SEO copywriter who can write good product descriptions, even at high volume, please feel free to list your name and link to your website below. I’ll be moderating the comments to ensure quality.)

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The Question

Is web content writing different from web copywriting? Are there different skill sets involved?

My Answer

Thanks for your email. Unfortunately the answer is yes.

Some people are starting to think of web content writing as the writing of content for search engines. Whereas they think of copywriting as writing of content for people (with an implicit agenda to sell).

I don’t differentiate (most of the time). If content isn’t worth reading, it’s unlikely to have much impact on your search rankings (‘cos no-one will link to it). Having said that, Google does like to see a volume of content related to a specific subject — that tells Google your site is ABOUT that subject, it doesn’t just MENTION that subject. But this is more for indexing. For the most part, it won’t help you rank better, but it will help ensure your pages are indexed appropriately (and will appear in the right searches).

So it’s understandable that some businesses might think it’s worth their while to pay a content writer for ‘non-visitor-critical pages’ and a copywriter for ‘visitor-critical pages’. But I see that as just another kind of spam.

So given the above definitions, I see copywriting as a much more skilled task. Content writing can be simply a matter of writing a boring, quite ordinary article, knowing that no-one will read it, and that you don’t have to impress, persuade or instruct anyone to do anything.

Also, as with keyword stuffing, I think content writing (by the above definition) won’t last long. Google will figure out a clever way of assessing the quality of those pieces. If they’re clearly written as keyword filler, they’ll be devalued, and customers will stop investing in them.

Writers, what do you think?

You copywriters and content writers out there, what do you think? Am I right or wrong? Please comment. (If you say I’m wrong, though, there’ll be no soup for you! ;-)

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The question

“I’ve built up a load of articles written for my clients on the topic of wellbeing, a few magazine articles I’ve written on the same topic, and a smattering of assorted articles on a whole bunch of topics. I would like to submit these to article submission sites such as Ezine Articles.

I’m unsure how much editing I should do on them to avoid search engine black-listing and in relation to acknowledging my clients (most of who are quoted in the articles).

Have you ever submitted an article that you’ve written on behalf of a client and, if so, how you’ve discussed it with the client? Do you think it would be wise to ask their permission and leave in their quotes? Do you foresee any problem/s with this?”

The answer

Ask the client’s permission?

Yeah, I’d definitely ask the client’s permission. Although, technically, in Australia, copyright remains the property of the creator unless otherwise agreed (sometimes agreement can be implicit), most clients are unaware of this. They think they own the article ‘cos they paid for it. So if you don’t request permission, you could find yourself in trouble… if not legal, then at least client-relationship-wise. By requesting permission, on the other hand, you’re showing respect and courtesy, and clients will like that. Most often, you’ll find your clients will be happy for you to include the article as is, so long as you link to their site as well as your own in the article. After all, they’re featured in the article, and it will ultimately help their SEO too.

A few of my earlier articles fell into this category:

• http://www.divinewrite.com/agentfees.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/architect.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/fengshui.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/negativegearing.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/propertymanager.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/customerservice.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/surf.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/livelife.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/adhd.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/fraser.htm
• http://www.divinewrite.com/fingerfone.htm

Note, however, that in most of the above articles, I DIDN’T include the client’s details (all the real estate and lifestyle articles). I spoke with the client, though, and I remember he was very dismissive of the whole thing. “Yeah, yeah, that’s fine. Whatever…” Didn’t care at all. Most clients won’t be like this.

Getting best SEO value out of your articles

As to where and how to post the articles in order to get best SEO value out of them… If they’re on topic (i.e. closely related to the subject matter of your site), I’d be inclined to post them on your blog first, then a few days later, distribute them to the article directories. This way, you get the social media benefit of the articles (the subsequent editorial links if the articles are good — these links are worth more than the author bio links you get from article PR), as well as the SEO benefit of the article PR. Know what I mean?

Note also that when you post them on your blog, you should also announce them to your social media following(s), etc etc. so that people are actually aware of them.

And do all of the above one at a time, though, not all at once. Drip-feed style. Otherwise you’ll use up all your blog content in one fell swoop.

About duplicate content

Re duplicate content: Firstly, be aware that there’s no such thing as a ‘duplicate content penalty’. There’s only a ‘duplicate content filter’. This is a Google filter that seeks to ensure that Google’s search results aren’t dominated by the same content over and over again. When Google identifies two identical articles, for example, it applies some intelligence to decide which one to display in the search results. E.g. It might choose to display the version that was published first, or the version that’s hosted on the site with the highest ranking, or the version on the site that’s most closely related to the subject matter of the article.

In other words, your article may not actually be returned in the search results, and unless you change the article pretty significantly, there’s not a lot you can do about that. Google decides. Especially if the article has already been published elsewhere.

That’s not a huge problem, though. You still get the full value of the backlinks to your site. So the articles still help your site’s ranking. If I were in your shoes (and I have been), I’d leave the articles as they are, cop it on the chin if Google displays another version of the article, and just be happy about the link juice you’re getting.

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