If you think you have come across the title of this article before, it is because you may have. I have purposely copied the title from a Matt Cutts article on article content. I will explain later, but for the beginners out there, Matt Cutts is a Google employee that writes a blog on Google issues and addresses some of the little variances of advice that Google offers on how to better understand their guidelines.
I was a little disappointed by Matts article as it addressed the need to produce original article content by focussing on the niches the article should be aimed at rather than addressing the topic that I thought would be of more importance, namely the quality of content production. The last third of the article was also so stuffed with keywords starting with the keyword SEO that I doubt it would have passed most article submission services requirements that filter out articles that stuff keywords in for the sake of search engine placement - shame on you Matt, I really wouldn't have thought it necessay for you to keyword stuff!
The main objective when it comes to article marketing is the production of quality new content on subjects on or related to, your websites purpose. The aim, if you then distrubute the article through article directories, is to have your article reproduced by other quality sites in your field, effectively gaining reputation, and ultimately a link back to your site from the publishing website which an interested reader may use to discover more about the given subject.
What article writing is not about is getting a thousand article directory links. Whilst you will not be penalised for publishing in a thousand directories, the main benefit of a wide distribution is mainly for the purpose of gaining exposure for your article so that webmasters looking for high quality content will find your article. As with most things internet related, exposure is king, so article distribution services have there place but if you expect an instant SERPs boost from just the links back from the directories themselves, you will find that only a portion of the reproduced copies of your articles will be taken into account. If however your article is subsequently reproduced by a website in your niche that has a good reputation, ( I think Page rank is still considered a measure of value by most people) then your website will gain points for each article copy found on each valued site.
I recently had a discussion on a forum about quality over quantity. The premise of my opponent was, that you can get articles written for you these days for about $5 a time for a 500 word piece. So why should he pay my charges that were, ( and still are) considerably higher. I tried to explain through that well known saying, that, as with most things in life, " You get what you pay for" and that whilst his $5 articles may well be written in perfectly good English and be focussed on the subject in hand, he would find that they failed to meet the one criterea that is most paramount when publishing the content. They had nothing to say.
By this I mean that they were ultimately generic using terms and phrases around the issue of the subject matter, but with no comment or opinion on it. For $5 I would not expect any less. If my premise is correct though, that article content should engage the audience first and foremost, these generic unique pieces are destined to sit at the back of the article directory bus, never to be reproduced or read and therefore ultimately of no value.
Writing good quality copy is a professional skill and one that should not be confused with a fifth grade comprehension exercise. If you want your article and therefore your website to be taken seriously, you should treat your article marketing with the respect that you give to your own reading material. Are you a Times reader or a Sun reader. More importantly, what sort of readers are the people you are ultimately trying to attract to your site?
Finally coming back to the title of this article. I copied the title for the article from Matt Cutts article of the same name for one of the reasons that Matt gave in his piece. he said "any time you look for an answer or some information and can't find it, that should strike you as an opportunity."
As I felt he had failed to address the more important issue in his article I reproduced the title so that searchers may discover the additional information from this piece which hopefully will sit close enough to Matts article in the Search Engine rankings, filling the void of information that Matt so kindly left open, and sending you to my site for more information,or better still..a commission!
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