Believe it or not, not every blogger that writes about SEO knows what they’re talking about (I know, shocking). One of the things that I keep seeing around is the advice to submit content to article directories. Luckily, not as often as I saw it in 2006, but it’s still there.
If they stopped for a moment to think about it, instead of regurgitating stuff they’ve seen in other places, they would see quite easily that syndicating articles it’s really not worth the trouble.
It’s duplicate content
If 10 people take that article and put the same version on their own sites, it’s really good chance that those pages will be marked by Google as duplicates and will probably go supplemental.
I don’t want links from blogs that think posting duplicate content is a good idea
Sorry, that’s what I call a bad neighborhood. I don’t accept that other bloggers steal my content and put it on their own blogs, and I don’t see why I would want sandboxed sites with no authority and lots of supplemental pages linking to me.
If it takes you 5 hours to write 10 articles to syndicate, why not use that time to write one great article and promote it.
Write a great article, put a few good hours in it, use some linkbait. Then send emails to the top 20-50 bloggers in your niche and let them know what a great article you wrote. Also submit to social media and use any other method to promote that article.
Even if only one of those bloggers replies and links to you, that one link is worth more then what you could get from 10 syndicated articles, and it’s the same amount of time involved.
You want authority? Get those that already have it to link to you.
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Gizmo's and Gadgets responded on 17 Oct 2007 at 2:53 pm #
You make an excellent point here. Never thought of it. Good job.
Simon Ward responded on 17 Oct 2007 at 4:20 pm #
I agree with your main point, syndicating is a waste of time, and as you point out, it may even have negative implications. However, I worry about your strategy of sending emails to bloggers from your niche letting them know about an article….does that work? It would piss me off, probably even if I knew the person sending it. I have a feedreader and social bookmark sites to find new content to read and write about, I don’t think it’s sound advice…I would be interested to know what success anyone has had doing this. Cheers.
Alexandru responded on 18 Oct 2007 at 12:24 am #
Simon, it works. And you can’t assume that Darren Rowse or John Chow will find your post by feed reader or social media. I’m not saying that you should email every post you make, but do it once a month maybe and point them to your very best articles if they might be interested.
I got links from BloggingTips.com, DoshDosh.com, 45n5.com, by sending them an email, and telling them that I’m trying to get my blog known, and pointing them to 5 articles of mine that I thought they might be interested in. I’d say it works, if you don’t abuse it and if your content is good.
I also got links from CashQuests.com, NetBusinessBlog.com, DailyBlogTips.com and others, when I e-mailed them about my adsense plugin.
I think you heard about most of the blogs above. Since blogging is about sharing, not just competition, I for one would love to link to quality articles that talk about out of the box ideas. I have no problem with receiving emails, as long as they point me to good content.
Alexandru responded on 18 Oct 2007 at 12:30 am #
Btw, not all will reply to your mail or write about you, but some of them will. And those are valuable links.
Simon Ward responded on 18 Oct 2007 at 11:16 am #
I see your point, and thanks for the reply. Certain blogs are going to be interested in new plug-ins, so emailing about that is solid. I might try out emailing a few about top performing article and see how it goes down… test the water. Cheers