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The new buzz on the internet is all about getting
one-way links by distributing content to other
sites in exchange for backlinks. As with every
other SEO or website promotion technique ever
devised, there are plenty of newbie myths about
it that can ruin your chance for success before
you even start.
Newbie Myth 1: The "Duplicate content penalty."
Some webmasters worry that if the content on
their sites is suddenly on hundreds of other sites,
search engines will inflict a "duplicate
content penalty." Why is this concern unjustified?
* If this were true, every major newspaper and
news portal website would now be de-indexed from
the search engines, since they all carry "duplicate
content" from the news wires such as
Reuters and the Associated Press.
* Thousands of self-promoting internet gurus
have proven that distributing content is an effective
method of improving search engine rank.
* Even more thousands of content websites have
proven that republishing this content does not
carry any search engine penalty.
True, the first website to publish an article
often seems to be favored by search engines, ranking
higher for the same content in searches than higher-PageRank
pages with the same content. But the "duplicate"
pages do show up in the search engine results,
even if lower than the original site. Meanwhile,
the reprint content has no effect on the ranking
of a site's other pages.
The only duplicate content penalty is for duplication
of content across pages of a single website. Meanwhile,
there is a sort of "copyright theft"
penalty, whereby someone who copies content without
permission can be manually removed from search
engine indexes out of respect for the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act. But that penalty is
only for flagrant theft, not minor mistakes in
attributing reprint content.
Newbie Myth 2: The goal is to get in article
clearinghouse websites.
There are over 100 popular, high-traffic websites
that act as clearinghouses for content made available
for redistribution. These websites include isnare.com,
amazines.com, and goarticles.com.
Many novice content-distributors are upset when
the article clearinghouse websites, with tens
of thousands of articles each with a backlink,
pass negligible PageRank. But the point of distributing
content to those websites is for other website
owners to find your content and put it on their
websites--not to get a backlink directly from
the clearinghouse website (though this is sometimes
an unexpected bonus).
Plus, to maximize PageRank-passing links, you
also have to submit articles to website owners
individually. It's not a small amount of work.
But there's no substitute for a polite, individually
crafted email recommending a website owner complement
his or her existing articles with one you've written.
Myth 3: Any content will do.
Reality: It should be obvious that many website
owners, jealous of their link popularity, will
only republish exceptionally high - quality content.
For articles, this means a unique point of view
and solid information that cannot be found just
anywhere, ideally presented in compelling language
in a web-optimized format by a professional published
writer. You can conduct a content distribution
campaign with bad content, but you'll be handicapping
yourself from the start.
Myth 4: Distributing content is easy. Just hit
"send."
Reality: Content distribution campaign requires
skillful planning to target publisher websites
effectively.
This is essentially a four-step process.
1. You must identify the categories of websites
most likely to republish your articles. These
categories range from the very broad, such as
internet, business, and family, and can go as
narrow as family-friendly internet businesses.
It's a careful balance: you need to make your
target category narrowly relevant to maximize
the value of the link and your chances of getting
your article accepted for publication. But if
you target too narrow a category, you'll lower
the maximum number of links you can hope to get.
For instance, a website on web content writing
has to target its content distribution to more
than just sites focusing on web content. There
are only so many websites devoted to web content
as a topic of interest, and besides, many such
websites would be competitors. Distribution should
target broadly relevant categories, such as web
design, webmaster issues, writing, marketing,
business, website promotion, and SEO. Yet some
broadly related categories, such as internet or
publishing, are not relevant enough to yield good
results.
2. To maximize success, you must have articles
custom-created for each major category you want
to submit to. "Incorporating Content in Web
Design" and "Marketing with Content"
would be possible titles for a web content-writing
website owner targeting web design and marketing
websites, respectively. An article about web design
won't appeal as strongly to marketers, or vice
versa, so simply submitting to websites having
to do with "the web" would not be as
effective.
3. For maximum success, articles custom-written
for a category then often have to be refined for
sub-categories. For instance, "Incorporating
Content in Web Design" becomes "Incorporating
Content into Flash Web Design," or "Incorporating
Content into Accessible Web Design." Sometimes
the refinement is just a "find and replace"
of one keyword for another, sometimes just in
the title. Sometimes, entire paragraphs have to
reworded or removed.
4. Once you've identified sub-categories of websites,
you still have to be able to meet the requirements
of individual websites. Some sites only publish
articles up to 500 words, some only do how-to
articles. Owners of high-ranking websites can
afford to be choosey. To really maximize results
within a sub-category, you need at least three
different articles of varying lengths and focus
specifically geared toward that sub-category.
In the end, distributing content for website
promotion and inbound links is a marvelously effective
way of promoting a website. But it's not magic
beans. Like anything else having to do with achieving
success on the web, it takes hard work and knowledge
to be successful.
About the author:
Joel Walsh is the owner of UpMarket Content, offering
a fully managed content distribution campaign
guaranteed to get you at least one hundred one-way
inbound links for every three pages of content:
http://upmarketcontent.com/website-promotion-package.htm
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