When it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and trying to create a successful campaign, one of the main things that comes to mind in the present day and age, is link building strategies. Over the years the art of link building has been one that has went through numerous refining stages due to search engine algorithm updates.
One of the most popular link building strategies is “Article Marketing” or as some other people know it as “Content Marketing”.
What is Article Marketing?
For those of you who may be new to the world of link building, article marketing is the technique of writing content and articles and placing them on a wide variety of websites called “Article Directories”. Now, the reason why this became popular is article directories allowed authors of the articles to create what is known as “Author Bylines” or “Author Information” sections where authors would put a link back to their website to increase their author’s presence.
As link builders and online marketing companies began to notice how these article directories operate, they started to abuse the system. They would take content and began posting it across a variety of these article directories and start putting links and everything to their clients websites or their own website as we way to increase their link popularity.
Google Recognizes Spammy Article Marketing Techniques
Believe it or not, Google was NOT the first search engine, places like AOL, Yahoo, and MSN were the beginning of the search engine era. However, Google entered the scene and search engines begin having to compete to offer their customers the best possible search experience possible. Once the search engines begin competing, then came the introduction of search engine algorithms that you hear marketing companies and SEO expert talk about so much today.
Search Engines like Google were trying out different ways to ensure they were providing the best possible user experience in the industry. They would have an algorithm that worked well for a while, and then experts and marketing companies would figure it out, learn how to manipulate the search results. Google started doing research and found out that companies and experts were manipulating the system, so they refined the algorithm.
This has not developed into a never ending cycle. SEO Experts and Marketing Companies are constantly learning and understanding ways to manipulate or increase their search engine rankings. Once marketing companies figure out ways to do this, Google will throw a change in their algorithm and the process repeats itself.
History of Article Marketing and the Evolution of Content
Many people in the industry are now saying that since Google’s “Penguin” and “Panda” updates that the world of article and content marketing are “Dead”. Well, this is not exactly true, and the ones who are saying that obviously were the ones that were trying to “Manipulate” the system and Google caught on to their secrets and tactics.
What has happened is Google has made changes to their algorithm that has stopped “Spam” articles that show up in article directories from having a major impact on search engine result pages (SERPS). Many marketing professionals were taking a single article and posting it to hundreds of different article directories, so the EXACT same article was published around the internet with a difference in the “Author By-Line”. This would provide marketing professional with tons of backlinks from these sites.
Well this doesn’t work anymore.
So, marketing experts thought – “Okay, let’s SPIN content, that way each one is a BIT different from the others, and submit those to different directories”. So companies and experts began what is called “Content Spinning” where they take an article and spin a sentence here, or spin some words there until they got a 25-30% unique article. They would then submit these to different article directories in the same manner they did before.
This worked for a while (actually a long time) until Google once again changed its algorithm up and started being able to detect spun content even if the uniqueness of the content was above 50%.
So Did Google Kill Article marketing all-together?
No, they have just finally made marketing professional do what they should have been doing all along – Produce High Quality Content.
If experts and companies would have been producing content that people would actually read and would actually get something useful from, then there would have been no reason to go through all these changes, however, people wanted to try to abuse the system and this is what happens.
So, how do you know if you are creating what Google is looking for when writing content? Simple, just follow the below checklist and you will have NO problems with the content you create for content marketing.
- Is the content something that took you longer than 5 minutes to write?
- Are you offering something new that people have never heard before? Or at least a different angle that has not been wrote about 100 times.
- Is the content 100% Unique? Is the content anywhere else on the internet, and does it pass Copyscape?
- Does your content have any meaning or purpose besides to build backlinks for your company?
- (Most Important) – Would you read it or would you share it with your friends and family.
Below you will find a video that head Google Webspam Matt Cutts personally made on the topic of article marketing to explain EXACTLY what Google is looking for when it comes to article and content marketing.
Take a look.
This article was created by SIS Media Group, LLC. SIS Media Group is one of (if not the only) 100% Exclusive SEO Reseller in the United States. They offer 100% Private / White Label SEO Services to other SEO & Marketing Companies around the world.