Monthly Archives: October 2014

How to Recognize a Good Quality Content Writer

Any website is made up of three made components. The place that hosts the website, or its URL, the graphics and design that go into creating the pages of the site, and the content. Although aesthetics are important for a high quality website if you want to catch your customers’ eye and keep them interested in the information that you have to offer, nothing is more crucial than good content. Google has stated that if individuals provide quality content on their website, then the people who read their information will value them, leading to more link backs and sharing. In simple terms, if your audience likes what you’re saying, then they’re going to help you find an even larger audience. However, managing your own content can become a little overwhelming when you have an entire business to manage and run, so a lot of people turn to content writing professionals for help. However, it can be difficult to split the professionals, from the people who really aren’t worth the money.

Make sure your Writer Cares about what they’re doing

Perhaps the most important thing to make sure your content writing candidate has, is passion. In order to produce amazing work, your content writers need to truly enjoy what they’re doing, they should be inspired to produce fantastic content, and this will translate onto your website pages. When you’re trying to connect to an audience, there’s nothing worse than a writer who just gives you the bare minimum, or a selection of dry facts that have no voice or personality behind them. Make sure that you find a content writer who your audience will be able to connect with. After all, content marketing is about building the image of your brand and giving your audience a sense of personality that they can create a relationship with.

Make sure your Writer does their research

The unfortunate truth is that when you hire a content writer, they may be pretty well educated, but they’re not going to know absolutely everything about absolutely every subject. Rather, your writers should be prepared to look for the information they don’t already have and provide you with informative and more importantly, accurate, content. Make sure that any content writer you consider hiring is willing to:

Check the facts they’re supplying you with
Look up information about the topic they’re writing on
Re-do any work that you don’t feel is up to scratch.

A writer shouldn’t be expected to know everything, but they should be expected to take the time and search for more knowledge on the things that they don’t know. You should never have to accept half-done articles or shifty statistics that may or may not be correct. If your content writers are giving you data to present as fact, then make sure those facts are solid, and reliable. After all, you don’t have the time to go around checking every piece of content to ensure that you’re giving out the right information.

What You Should Know About Google Penguin 3.0

The penguin algorithm is the recent update to google that has been dedicated to fighting back against the torrents of spam that typically overwhelm quality content online. The third version of this algorithm hopes to continue improving the world of digital marketing, predicted to validate the numerous days of hard work that digital marketers have put into making their online presence more quality-driven.

The Google Penguin algorithm was designed to target backlinks of poor quality to websites, such as those generated by forum posts, article exchanges, purchased backlinks and low quality directories. The latest update has targeted commercial anchor text that underlines commercial terms instead of the necessary brand names required, such as advertising a link to ‘Apple’ through ‘computers’.

The second version of the Penguin algorithm was released last October, and made a huge difference to search results and Google feedback for many industries. Since then, companies have been working extremely hard to fight back against negative links and update their current targets to meet with Google’s standards. With that in mind, 3.0 should have pretty significant results.

The Recent Google updates

Over the recent years, Google has been constantly updating its various search algorithms, shifting what people have to do to get better rankings online. Google has been attempting to make its search results more user-driven, which means that they want to provide browsers with the most satisfying and relevant results. Of course, it’s taken some time for Google to figure out exactly what to do with various updates to the system, and the chances are that we still have a lot to come in the way of progression. The recent updates that are most relevant to targeting spam include:

The Panda algorithm
The Payday loans algorithm
The Penguin algorithm

The Panda algorithm was first launched in 2011, to target content on websites that was considered to be of low quality. Following penguin, this update has had one of the largest effects on search marketing and content marketing over the recent three years. The panda update tends to refresh on a monthly basis, with new rules coming in to play regularly.

The Payday loans algorithm was launched in an attempt to cut down on some of the more spam-oriented websites on the internet. Studies and surveys over time showed that gambling websites, payday loans websites, and sex-industry based sites had the biggest impact on spam levels overall across the world wide web. These industries included a lot of blackhat SEO tactics, which lead Google to fight back with more aggressive means in 2013.

Finally, Penguin is perhaps the update that has provided the biggest impact to the online marketing world. The Penguin update first saw light in the spring of 2012, and it was created to target the backlinks that have been considered spam, and bringing down the level of high-quality SEO for more than ten years now. Today, Penguin is the algorithm that sets the bar for websites these days, allowing them to measure their success according to their search engine results.

How to Use Targeted Content Marketing for Real Results

Over the recent years, the internet has been flooded with articles on how to use content marketing, and why it’s so important as a valuable part of your online selling campaign. However, the truth is that content marketing is nothing new, though people are only just learning how to do it right. For some time now, Google has been emphasizing the necessity of good quality content, and this doesn’t just mean content that has been packed full of search-engine-optimized words. It’s content that your users, as well as the search engine bots, are going to want to read. If your users think that the content you are putting out is informational and valuable, then they’re more likely to share it with more viewers and increase your potential reach.

The Google Algorithm

Various websites have begun to be penalized by the updates of the google algorithm over time. Most recently, companies have been suffering serious repercussions as a result of using duplicate content or text that possessed no valuable information. Once upon a time, it was fine to write content that tailored specifically to google and no-one else, but the truth is that Google is not the factor that will lead to your next sale or lead. The internet thrives on information, and every day the online network is becoming more competitive, with content appearing in the form of:

Blogs
Guest posting
News
Articles
Social media

So how do you use content that you know is really going to work?

Provide unique, quality content

Every piece of content that your website publishes should be unique. This means that you cannot simply copy one article from a blog, to a website, to your next news article. Even if the first article got a lot of views or positive responses, you’ll get penalized for using duplications. On top of this, make sure that any content you put out there is worth reading. Quantity may be important in some circumstances, but nothing is more crucial than quality. Use content writers who have a good understanding of the way the English language works, and make sure that they are capable of using punctuation correctly throughout. The lower your content quality is, the less likely you are to attract customers.

Utilizing the right format can also be important in producing quality content. If you choose to copy and paste content directly from a word processing program that you have been using, you may find that this embeds a lot of extra code in the document. If you want to ensure that this doesn’t happen, you can copy content into notepad before posting it on your blog or content management system. Furthermore, content should utilize the correct use of lists, subheadings and pictures to ensure that you are not simply presenting your audience with a singular block of text, as some people find this difficult to read. Allow your readers the opportunity to scan through the content you have provided to find the exact information that they need.

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