Archive for May, 2007
Why Use An Article Content Spinner?
Content spinners are rapidly becoming a required tool in article marketing. Spinning articles is the process of taking a single article and using the content as a basis to create tens or even hundreds of new, unique versions.
All of the spun articles contain the exact same information, simply written in a different way, thereby making each article both naturally human-readable and unique in terms of the actual words used.
What’s the point?
If you’re not using a content spinner, when you submit to article directories or have your article posted on other websites, search engines like Google are now able to tell that the text in each location is identical, or in other words, duplicate content.
Don’t be misled by people who tell you it doesn’t matter because other content on the page is different.
That’s not how it works.
The search engines compare pages by looking at lots of snippets or “snapshots” of the text on the page, and then seeing what percentage match up. When a certain threshold percentage is reached, the content is considered duplicate.
In addition, most of the other content on an article page is going to be navigation and ads anyway, which being almost identical on every page of a site is often easily identified as such and ignored in the comparison.
And simply swapping out words for other synonyms doesn’t get passed Google these days either, unless you change so many that the article is no longer readable. I bought some software that does that, but now I never use it.
When it decides it’s looking at duplicate content, the search engine selects which of the pages containing that content it thinks is most relevant for the keyword search performed, and gives it prominence by demoting the rest. It values backlinks from the articles in a similar manner.
And as Google has clearly stated, even if you’re the original author, the copy of the article considered most relevant by Google may not be the one on your website. In fact, unless you have a strong site, it’s more than likely that Google will display a result from a higher PR, better linked article directory.
With article spinning you can ensure that the versions of articles on your website are different from the versions anywhere else. You can even submit different versions to different article directories, and allow people to download unique versions for use on their own sites.
Can you see the power in that?
You could conceivably even build out an entire site with numerous versions of the same article — each page will appear to be unique to the search engines, because textually they are!
There are a few article spinners on the market now, including Article Uniqualizer, Artemis Pro and Content Rewriter Pro.
There’s also Jetspinner, a new free content spinner service.
How To Submit To Article Directories
As we’ve already seen, submitting to article directories is an excellent means of promotion. So having covered the why of writing articles and submitting them to article directories, I thought today we’d cover how.
Before that though, let me just mention that when you’re deciding where to submit, all else being equal, you should give priority to article submission sites that allow you to include an active HTML link in your Resource Box or Author Bio. Without this link, you lose a lot of the SEO benefits of your article submission.
I say “a lot” because most sites that don’t allow you to include HTML, will nevertheless automatically turn any website address into a clickable link. You still get a link, but without the valuable keyword-rich anchor text (the words you click on in the link) that search engines use in considering page relevance to a given keyword.
The vast majority of article directories require that you create a user or author account before you can submit an article. Generally only basic information such as name and email address is required together with a password for login purposes, although occasionally you may also be asked for your physical address.
I strongly suggest you set up a dedicated email account at Google, Yahoo, etc., or on your own website to use for article directory submissions. The volume of email from the better quality sites you join initially will not be a problem, but once you start casting your net wider, and posting to many of the lower quality article directories that email users far more frequently, you’ll soon find yourself the recipient of a significant amount of (generally) unwanted mail.
Although some article directories offer instant account creation, most require that you confirm your email address before articles are accepted. A confirmation email will be sent to the address you used to sign up, containing a link for you to click. Do this within 48 hours, otherwise the link may expire and you’ll have to start over with a new registration.
Once you’ve activated your author account, start the submission process by selecting the most appropriate category for the article you intend to submit. This is important. If you select the wrong categories, your article won’t be effective.
Don’t be tempted to list your articles in unrelated categories thinking it will bring some advantage over the competition. It won’t. It will work against you in terms of both visitors and SEO benefits and may also get your account deleted if repeated.
This sounds obvious, but take some care to read any instructions and complete the article submission form correctly. Where articles are reviewed manually, mistakes here will cause your article to be rejected. If on the other hand submitted articles are automatically accepted, any mistakes you make will be published to the directory. Of course in that case you can edit your submission to rectify it, but that’s little use if you haven’t noticed your mistakes in the first place.
The information required is fairly standard across most article directories, with form fields for you to put the title of your article, the main article body, and your Resource Box or Byline.
Use word caps for your title, don’t enclose it in quotation marks, and don’t use punctuation at the end unless it’s a question mark or exclamation. Some directories allow the use of HTML in the article body. If that’s the case, you might want to take advantage of it to improve presentation and perhaps include a couple of resource links (not affiliate links).
Some article directories also require a short description or synopsis of the article, and give the option of tagging your article with keywords to aid in searches. If this option exists, always make full use of it by adding as many relevant keywords as the site permits.
Note I said “relevant keywords.” Keep your focus reasonably narrow, and if you’ve exhausted the main keywords for the topic, move on to synonyms, rather than broader terms. Never use unrelated keywords, it will only harm, not help your submission.
Once you’ve finished filling in your article details, double check that everything is correct and you’ve not missed anything before clicking the “submit” button.
If articles are accepted automatically, your article will be added to the directory immediately and you will receive a confirmation email from the article submission website. At the higher quality directories, all articles have to be reviewed before they are approved for inclusion. This can take a few days, after which you will be notified whether or not your article submission was successful.
When you first start out, article directory submissions may seem like a lot of work. Don’t be put off. Much of that is simply because it’s something new to you. Once you become familiar with the process and the different article directories you use, the task will become much quicker and easier. But fast or slow, the fact remains that the benefits of submitting articles are too many to ignore.