Okay so my post about article marketing super basics was just that, basics. I want to talk about article marketing and duplicate content. I don’t know what you know about it but you may be scared about duplicate content. However I can assure you, it will not eat you, it’s not a big hungry monster.
So what can you consider duplicate content?
Well this is the same content published at different locations on the web.
Is this a problem?
Yes and No. Yes, if you publish twice the same article on your website or blog. There is actually no point for you to do it, and Google may think “Hmm, is this guy trying to spam the index?”
So, don’t publish the same content on your website twice, once is enough.
No, it’s not a problem if you publish your article on your website and then to article directories, as long as these articles will point to the original version on your website.
Why?
Well, if Google finds that the original first version was on eZineArticles, then your blog post is the copy, even if it’s not true. But eZineArticles may get indexed faster than your blog post. So some people will prefer to wait that there blog post is indexed before submitting the same content to article directories. I’m not sure it is necessary.
If all article directories link to your blog post, then they are passing the authority to the blog post. They’re telling Google, we’re “voting fot this website”. And Google should favor your blog.
Now, remember if you’re marketing your website with articles, the purpose is to gain backlinks, so actually, even if the content is the same, you don’t really care if the articles don’t show in the results for the search query.
Let me explain with an example.
You have submitted the same article to 300 article directories, you have done what it takes to optimize the article at its best. The article got approved everywhere and you did what it takes to have Google find out about every location it is on. Cool.
Let’s say your article is the most relevant content in the eyes of Google. Then the article is going to rank first for the keyword you optimized it for. But since it is the most relevant content, it could also rank number 2, 3, 4 etc. until 300 article directories are listed.
Well it doesn’t work like that, FORTUNATELY, or search engines job would be worthless. Search engines job is to serve the most relevant content to your search query. By showing you 300 times the same content they’re not really optimizing your experience.
So Google determines which article has the most authority for that same content. Let’s say it finds out it is eZineArticles, and the article there rank first. Google still knows about other article directories and has counted them, with the backlinks to your blog post.
However it will not include the other article directories, since you already got that information served.
Then, all the backlinks have shown your blog post was the authority since 300 sites were linking to that version of the article. You get the boost and become the authority. You may not rank as high as eZineArticles because of the domain power they have (age, backlinks, content indexed…)
Of course, SEO is a consistent game.
You can of course submit the same article to article drectories and have different and completely unique content on your website. That’s certainly the best thing to do, though it requires more work.
What about article spinning?
Spining content was made to have enough unique content so search engines can serve multiple version of your articles.
As we saw, Google will serve one version of your content, if it finds the same version elsewhere then there is no interest for the end user, this result is omitted.
So spinning an article allows you to make your article unique enough so Google doesn’t see it as a duplicate version. So for the same keyword, your article can be listed more than once. You may see eZineArticles on first page, ArticleBase and ArticleSnatch on page 2, Goarticles on page 3.
The purpose is to get more traffic.
Is it worth it?
Again, Yes and No. Yes you may get more traffic, but it takes time to rewrite and spin an article. If you focus your time on how to write articles in 10 minutes or less then you may have more articles to submit. If you decide to spin all your articles, you’re not writing for another keyword.
Basically you optimize for one keyword, so the same people who saw your eZineArticles will see the one on ArticlesBase, etc.
I have to admit I used content spinner and they certainly are useful, I know many others will say it’s not but I think they can be very effective. The best spinner is… The Best Spinner. It’s $84 a year I think, there are many others but this one is super easy to use and is super fast at creating multiple versions.
I came accross another product: Content Professor. It seems to do the same but it is web based. It’s still in beta version so you can join for free and use it. I’m trying it now and it seems to work well.
Now for simple article marketing use, I’m not sure it is al worth it if you want to link to your website. Sure your article will show more than once but with time, rankings start to fade.
EXCEPT IF you boost them. Now this is how spinning can be interesting. See it like this:
You write only one article. Spin it. Distribute it. Backlink 5 to 10 versions. If you think you can acquire 100 backlinks for each version of your article and these versions are all unique enough, then they may all rank very well. If you can get these 5 to 10 locations to rank on page one and 2 that’s certainly a great thing.
Now you also have to keep in mind that when you write one article, you do it to optimize for one keyword, maybe two. So you certainly want to choose keywords that get enough traffic, buying keywords with good traffic even better.
There is also some other use of article spinning that we’ll see in a future post.
BUT I hear you say, why not acquire backlinks for my own website. And you’d be right too. You can certainly write 5 to 10 articles to publish on your website and acquire 100 backlinks for each. You may need more backlinks depending on the competition you’re facing but this way, you’re promoting your website, your business. That’s a smart thing to do.
So what to do? Well I’ll send you back to the article marketing super basics post. I told you it depends on what you want to do. If you want to build an authority website, you’ll need quality content and backlinks to your pages. If you want to boost your articles, you’ll need to backlink them, and may not need to optimize your website for search engines. You’ll get traffic from article directories.
- To sum up, you can submit the same article to multiple article directories
- You can’t publish twice the same article on your website
- You decide what website should get a boost, your own or the article directory, depending on your goal
Enough for today.
