Put Your Crappy Content Away, Ya Lazy Bum!
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The times, they are a changin’. Although it hasn’t officially happened yet, there have been whispers in quite a few places for a while now that things are changing in the world of article marketing, specifically in the article directories and very specifically, with Ezine Articles. And in my personal opinion, it’s a change for the better.
Here’s what’s rumored to be happening: submission standards are about to get a whole lot higher. To put it in a nutshell, the minimum standard for articles to get approved (which, historically, has been pretty darn low) is going to be longer and better. No longer will you be able to throw together a crappy 250 word article full of spelling and grammatical errors and call it a day. Soon, that kind of sloppy work won’t get approved any more.
And what’s more…
The changes are reportedly retroactive!
Meaning if you’ve got crappy articles approved in the past, unless you update them and make them acceptable, they’ll disappear.
What do I have to say about this?
Well, I say it’s about damn time. I’ve said many times, on this blog and on the other sites I own, that putting quality content out there is the real key to succeeding in online business. And I use article marketing to promote my products, but when I mention that I’m an article marketer, people lump me in with those other bozos littering the article directories with crap content and giving the rest of us a bad name.
For my own article marketing, I’ve long held a stipulation that all the articles I use be at least 400 words long, always be completely original, and have really useful information for the reader. Keyword density should be between 2-5%, but is usually around 2.5-3.5%. Because I’ve been doing things this way for a long time, I know that, when the changes do come, I don’t have to worry about any of my old articles being taken down.
HOT TIP –> The MOST IMPORTANT thing i do however, is write the content first and then go back and keyword optimize it. If you write for a keyword the content will suck… create a title first, write a worthwhile piece of content and then go back and keyword optimize it. Your content will get both published and read!
So that’s my advice for anybody using article marketing right now – if you’re not already, make the change and start writing quality articles NOW, before the new rules come into play. Do this for two reasons; one, because quality is always better than crappy (in terms of your reputation and your bottom line), and you should have been doing it this way all this time anyway; and secondly, so that when these changes do come you’ll be ahead of the game and not one of the people left in the lurch when all of their articles get dumped.
NEW Update: Just saw a new update to the ezinearticles guidelines as we speak…
Expert Authors can now earn the ability to link-up 4-word and 5-word phrases* by submitting lengthier (over 400 words) high-quality articles.
BOTTOM LINE:
- If your article is shorter than 400 words, each text link may only contain a maximum of 3 words*
- If your article is longer than 400 words, each text link may only contain a maximum of 5 words*
* Important Note: Any common words, including to, is, in, on, it, and, at, by, a, an and others will now be excluded from the word count.
PS – If you are wondering why i am focusing on EzineArticles here… cause they are the grand daddy of all article directories and you NEED to be using them (IMHO).
So what’s your thoughts?
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This is why I hate article writing. I think that this will be a great change when it is in full effect. I have an Ezine account, but I have never published anything due to a lack of want to. It will hurt the PLR sales I think.
For the affilates, as the search engines get better at filtering out thin affiliate Websites writing good content will become more of a key strategy. That means writing good articles that are both informative and a call to action.
And affiliates who think their blogging efforts are, or have been a waste of time might be thankful for their efforts as they will be ahead of the game.
Thanks for this. I’ve been interested in doing article writing but wasn’t sure who to go with. I went to Blogworld last month and got info from around 5 companies doing the same thing.
Reading blogs and articles laden with incorrect spelling and terrible grammar is like nails on a chalkboard to me. Maybe this new rule will make web articles easier to read and teach people a lesson.
I think that this will be a great change when it is in full effect.
I think this is a great idea. There are too many unoriginal, poorly written articles out there. More quality over quantity is a very very good thing.
Given how social the internet is these days perhaps article sites will have a feature (if they don’t already) where users vote/thumbs up or down articles. The more thumbs down then the article will go up for review and could potentially be taken off the web.
That might be a solution for the millions of articles already out there anyway.
Thanks for this. Reading blogs and articles laden with incorrect spelling and terrible grammar is like nails on a chalkboard to me
I use article sites like Ezine just for the anchored backlink, not the direct traffic.
Am I the only one who looks at Article Marketing in this manner?
With that said, i wasn’t even aware you could submit anything less than 400 words to these type sites.
Of course, I use a service to send out my articles, and they won’t submit anything less than 400 words anyway.
AL
Great Post.
I think this is a great rule and hopefully this will increase the quality of articles. I find it very inooying to read articles that are only 250 words and is crappy.
mmooooo! you have to edit your work as you type, and put the keywords in there too! you don’t play basketball like nothing then expect the world to watch your next game (to come together, the way pro’s do write) I would prefer to read a good text book than visit most shit sites on business, get a Mac if it helps — just do it right the first time! if you’ve seen squeeze pages on Google lately you would know what’s happening — sweet! but that doesn’t mean riches!! but most definetly, world is changing!
Aw, man. This sucks. I’m a big believer in keeping low standards
This is gonna ruin it for everyone. haha.
I think that’s a great idea also. Even though I’ve got a number of articles there, I tend to submit long articles, but see very little that seems to reach even 300 articles. I’d heard that was a strategy that some people have been taught, but to me, if you’re not going to put any real effort into it, what’s the point?
I love article marketing because of the length of time the links stay active. There’s nothing better than having the power of the backlink still active after even years!
Well worth spending time to build quality backlinks that last. Ezinearticles is your friend. Keep em happy! lol
definitely a good development. when I was just getting started with submitting content to ezinearticles, I was really surprised that they were allowing those crappy articles with retarded grammar errors.
Im not into using them anymore but I think it would be a good development on their part.
There will always be junk sites that cut corners, while a few might rise above it I think they will be in the minority.
This is why I have never and will never write articles for these sites, they’re not worth it I would rather take the time to add to my blog and benefit my readers and community.
Jason
You hit the nail on the head with this one.
There has been a hell of a lot of rubbish posted onto the article directories as of late.
And, they seem to be going the Google route and deciding on changing their systems, so that they become reader orientated again.
I have not seen article sites ranked in Google like they used to. In the past I continually found Ezine Articles submissions on the first page of Google.
It seems that this has changed quite some time ago, and I no longer see these articles getting ranked. I would presume that it was due to the fact that the vast majority of the articles were cruddy half though out bits o’ spam.
I wonder if with these new stricter guidelines in place Google will consider letting these types of sites rank in the search engines again.
Does anyone seriously make money out of article marketing? Seriously?
This is a great move especially for the big article directories. These sites provide us a great opportunity and the articles listed should offer some real insight. I say good for Ezine Articles. Take a few more minutes and make your article a good one.
Hello JohnCow,
I think it should have been this way since long. I’m also on this article sphere and I can understand the frustration of seeing improperly formatted articles. Some people are just so careless in their submission, just focussing on the backlink.
If people submit articles properly, it would be a big plus for everyone in that community.
Unfortunately, careless submission seem to be impossible to be amended so easily. So, I think the initiatives and actions taken by EzineArticles is by far a good one! Lets hope we see some positive reactions in the way people submit their articles.
LdaInformation.net
(Not just another article directory)
JK,
Excellent comments! I submit original articles to EzineArticles.com that are at least 400 words long. I am a Platinum author with more than 100 articles and 185,000 page views since 2006. Some articles have a very high click through rate to my websites, resulting in good traffic.
Articles are a sign of what we offer on our websites. If we offer excellent quality in article directories, people who read our articles will look forward to visiting our worthwhile websites. That’s where the best conversion takes place.
Keep up the great work!
Article Marketing can be great for backlinks when done properly. However, you are discussing one site in particular. Perhaps you can expand on spinning the same article to re-use it on other article sites or PR submissions. I’ve found that many PR sites will accept the same content as the article. They have slightly different rules, however they both provide backlinks.
Articles can have embedded anchor text whereas most of the PR sites do not allow that without additional money.
I’ve been considering Magic Article Rewriter and Spinner/Submitter. Currently using “Re-Write” which is a lot of work but I can push spun articles into other submitters or SE Nuke or other types of tools for more reach.
Purpose Advertising is an NJ advertising agency that specializes in both traditional media and online marketing for companies who desire more accountable results from their advertising Visit NJ Ad Agency
Great Tip on writing for readers first, optimizing second.
This should help people that actually write quality articles to get more attention and traffic, since you wont have to complete will thousands of crap spun articles.
I’ve been publishing articles for years and it’s a great addition to your online campaign. Not many people are doing it and then others are terrible at it. I hate getting articles that say absolutely nothing or absolutely nothing new. I feel like I’ve wasted my time on a catchy title and I’ll no longer waste my time if I ever see anything by that author again. That’s why I make sure all my content is true, accurate, entertaining and useful.
I for one would be glad to see new rules in place on ezinearticles. I am an article marketer, affiliate marketer, and blogger and I have never once wrote a throw together article.
However because of the way ezinearticles has become I rarely use them anymore. I’d much rather use a system like http://www.freetrafficsystem.tk/
I think they actually are the wave of article marketing in the future. They don’t publish your articles themselves. They deliver each article you write, to 30 other members blogs/websites. I find this helps spread good quality articles a lot faster and a lot more realistically because ezinearticles has definitely becomes bogged with trash.
I will keep my eye on it though for new changes, thanks for the info.
I think “crappy content” speaks volumes about the quality of the person submitting these types of articles.
It’s just like with free ebooks, reports, white papers, teleseminars or what not; create high value from the start.
Whatever you put out there (out there being cyberspace) is your calling card. Make it stellar.
Cheers – Kathleen
This is great news. No longer will my article drop because of someone keyword stuffing a similar article and taking over one that I wrote with more meaningful content
Personally I don’t see much of a change. These are things that I have been doing all along. The key to article writing is having good content. Without that, well, just get your crayons out and draw a picture or two. Because ppl won’t want to read it anyway. Just another (IMHO)
Sincerely Mr_P
[...] http://www.johncow.com/put-your-crappy-content-away-ya-lazy-bum/ [...]
The search engines and article directories are always getting smarter. They keep raising the bar, but if you create quality content in the first place, you have a lot less to worry about.
Too many articles and blog posts are just painful to read. I’m glad that the bar is being raised in this area.
EZineArticles always have had tight standards. Maybe a few will follow suit, but most article sites just want content for their AdSense links.
Well, I guess there’s only one thing to say…when the going gets tough…the tough gets going…
Great content will draw readers, sure enough, and if you link your article in with a call to action, then you have, at a minimum, a sales lead, and hopefully, a purchasing customer for your pitched product. There are many reasons people use these directories, as was mentioned. Crappy articles using appropriate anchor text can create high PR backlinks to your website of choice. Good SEO strategy is to do this as often as possible, but unfortunately, many people write as if they never graduated from middle school. Mix good writing, interesting content with good SEO practices, and you’ll get the traffic you need. It will all be targeted, too, if done appropriately.
Jason, I can’t help but think you’re not seeing the big picture here. The internet users are craving…no, demanding…articles that stuffed with unintelligible keywords. They want information that is so difficult to understand that they must rush to the affiliate link to find out more. Their experience during their search is wasted, if they cannot find the right PLR article, with regurgitated sentences and misspelled words, to guide them to their final solution. Imagine for a moment how confused and disappointed they would be if the article was written with proper english and helpful information…I think the internet is just not ready for the radical concepts that you are presenting, and after all, the user is what the internet is all about.
Thanks for the post on this. I have been prepping for some article marketing and it is good to know what is acceptable and what is not now!
Totally agree Jason some niches are flooded with very low quality articles…
One example is the start a home business niche! That gets some very rocky content.
“Was going to say some right Bull dung but did’nt want to upset the Cow!”
Must check the Ezine Articles blog… catch up on the latest.
Thanks for the update.
What can I say but it is so about time for this, it is sad that this wasn’t something of a requirement to begin with.
Well, my friend, here is where I defer from your prospective on Ezine Articles. Dare I say it? I am disagreeing with the strictest guidelines anywhere that are being used to get your article accepted.
Articles are a very important part of your marketing plan and none hold a close second to it. So, this really restricts those of us who are exuding words of wisdom right off the top of our heads.
But, I admire those who do.
Good ! Finally I will be able to get my crappy article website off the ground. I’m going to compleetley domanate the wurld of crappy articels !
Will the changes really be retroactive? Seems kind of unlikely since they haven’t done it with other changes (ie. EA banned the word “scams” from article title, but if you had an article with “scam” in a title before the change it still works fine)
I agree though that it’s for the better, no one wants to read a crappy 250 word article that is so broken you can’t even read it.
Hey man why is your name different than the name of your website? Who is john cow??
Your Curious Reader,
Mike
Read the about page
Finally the article directories are getting more strict… Was curious when this was gwoing to happen. Guess there was a flood of bad internet marketers putting out junk content to get the links in the last year or so…
Amen! As the CEO/Publisher of a rapidly growing article directory I can confirm this absolutely. From the day we launched back in May of this year quality has been our number one priority. My top of list revulsion in article submissions are “spun” articles. 95% of the spun articles submitted are pure crap and are immediately denied and if further abuses by the author occur they are blocked permanently. As you say “putting quality content out there is the real key to succeeding in online business.” Individuals visit our directory looking for quality, professional articles for their blogs and sites and I intend to provide nothing but that. Thanks for your views and hey feel free to submit your quality articles to our directory!
I agree wholeheartedly with this approach. I use the same technique to generate an article that I would be proud to call my own. I write the article first and make sure that it is well organized (outline) and that the narrative “flows”. I have not forgotten the writing lessons I learned in the 8th grade about introduction/main idea, supporting points, and conclusion. I use it frequently and with my current project on “learn currency trading”.
I then go back an optimize for the keyword. It usually requires a little rewriting but not much. It is much, much easier to write a coherent article using this technique.
Hi John,
I’ve seen a lot of articles in Ezine Articles that made me wonder how they got approved.
Low quality with spelling mistakes never does it for me. I almost feel ashamed for the writers and the directory too when I see articles like that.
On the other hand I don’t appreciate any words being excluded. That to me is nonsensical.
Aren’t all the words part of the language? Will people start omitting common and very useful words in their speech?
The common words are not fillers and play crucial part.
Which words are they going to exclude next? Which words will count in the end?
In any case it shouldn’t be the number of words that determines definitively how good an article is.
A wordy 700 word article shouldn’t be necessarily better than 380 word article that serves its purpose perfectly.
When an effort is made to spell out all the rules and any small deviation from those rules is punished, the result can be less than a masterpiece.
The more restrictions the less creativity.
At least that’s the way I see it.
I started the 100 article challenge with Ezine. I think their standards are already high. I also believe that article marketing will help anyone’s business. I haven’t made any money, yet, but I have had many interesting comments on my blog for the first time. Thanks for this article, Jason.
Ezine Articles have had the recommended minimum word content of 400 for quite a long time. Having read their reecent blog on the new guidelines, my understanding on the exclusion of common words (to, is, in, on, it, and, at, by, a, an) only refers to the number of words in the keyword phrase for the back link.
Thanks for this. Reading blogs and articles with incorrect spelling and terrible grammar is like a needle in a hay stack.
Make it a Great Day!
Sandi
I got a bit panicked by this post so I popped over to e-zine to check. You can still put up articles with 250-400 words, they are just restricting the number of anchor text you can use. If you submit an article over 400 words you can have longer anchor text.
They are not excluded words from the article just the anchor text, if I understand correctly i.e if you are using “health for you” as anchor text “for” does not count so if the restriction is 3 words you could have “health for you now” if for was the excluded word.
Bottom line 1. you can still put up 250 word articles on e-zine.
2. there is no restriction in words in the article and words are counted so if your article word count is 505 words then that is the number of words in the article.
3. There is nothing about removing articles already approved.
I hope this helps. I do believe that there is a place on the internet for short articles but that you should write articles of varied levels to be safe.
Hi John,
When I started internet marketing, I was appalled at some of the low quality articles I saw on article directories, including EzineArticles.
But why were these sub-standard articles accepted in the first place? Is it a case of giving the customer what they want?
Still, I think useful content is king if the info is conveyed clearly, regardless of the length of the article and use of ‘current’ words and phrases.
Of course changes like this one is a welcomed development. I’m an expert author on ezinearticles.com and have done some high ranking articles on the site. However, I’ve discovered that originality is a lacking element of most of the articles on the site.
The truth is, if ezinearticles.com is doing this to sinitize the system then it’s a good thing. It shouldn’t just be a thing of the article lenght. The quality should also come to play.
It’s worth adding that if this is to be retroactive then most article marketers are not going to find this funny!
Hmmm. I like that Ezine has standards but I don’t know about ratcheting them up and setting the bar so high. I have an Ezine account and write articles occasionally. It’s all about exposure. That’s the only reason I write for. My content is original but I don’t want to have to sweat every article I put in there. I like the fact that I can put something, of quality, together in a short period of time and then move onto my next project. It sounds as if Ezine is going to be more time consuming than it’s worth.
Articlebase seems to be good
This is cool, if EZA is suppose to be the standard bearing for article directories, then the content should be of good quality. The updated guidelines can be to your advantage if used properly.
Well, I have seen such a thing at ezine articles. Many of my articles disapeared or I was told to update them.
The funny thing is that even when I updated them, many were still rejected. My account was suspended from future submissions until I restored my account to good standing. (You know them with there policies) That was a lesson and now I write good articles or outsource.
The thing is that you cannot do without them. So do what they want.
Thanks for this article.
EZA has always been the leader of the pack. I use them exclusively for my travel articles but my other site is affiliate marketing based (still with good information articles)but I tend to use the next top 10 or so like Amazines and Articlebase etc.
I think it is good thing to have the higher standards because as you say there is so much crap out there!
Yes, this was long overdue. End the PLRs and the spinners. That’s why I like Associated Press….a great editing team.
content must add value, there is enough scrapping and re-writing done which dosenot adds any value both to the site and the readers… the times surely changing and we must improve our article quality big time…
Quality writing is the key to long term successful business online, why write for short term gain? Business is business, do it well and succeed.
Hmmm, I’m still concentrating on writing content for the present, but with a non-temporal factor attached. That’s why I’m using an old post revival plugin and my blog posts are generating content for something I’ve written 2 years ago.
Supposedly this is a useful item and I hope it will high up the quality of posts. that is very exhausting to view articles which have just 200 words.
Hi
Darn! I really hate article marketing, Its just that it doesn’t get my interest in writing articles. Hope I could at least like to write.
Kind Regards
Sam
X
Hello Jason, I wanted to comment on split testing on a website web hosting is a competitive field and any edge is a good one. Googles changed a bit, I was using statcounter dot com and still do, got used to their analytics. May need to rethink that.
Very informative post. I think this is great tips for me to increase quality.