Entry of Penguin Update and impact on article marketing
SEO strategies had steadied a bit in 2012 as the Panda updates kept on refreshing but with only minimal changes. All of a sudden, Matt Cutts hinted about “Over optimization”, which lead the entire web promotion sector into a panic. SEO experts who were using article marketing strategy extensively were very much worried as if their websites were sure to be hit by the penguin update. Thanks to the clarification from Google. During the penguin update, it was mentioned by Matt Cutts, (head of Google Webspam team) that “If you syndicate your content on other sites, Google will always show the version we think is most appropriate for users in each given search, which may or may not be the version you’d prefer. However, it is helpful to ensure that each site on which your content is syndicated includes a link back to your original article. You can also ask those who use your syndicated material to use the noindex meta tag to prevent search engines from indexing their version of the content.”
That being said, article marketing still works if you syndicate carefully instead of spamming the web with poor quality content. Here are some most important changes that you need to make with you article marketing strategy after the penguin update:
1. Forget about “article submission” just think in the lines of “article syndication”: Gone are the days when you write an article and spread the same article with the links intact to all the article directories. Instead, the original article should be published in any ONE of the currently best article directory or blogs. You should be getting the article published and then spread the same article to the other article directories just by including the original article source in the resource box. Doing so will make the process as syndication rather than just submission
2. Goodbye to keyword anchor texts – The penguin update has redefined the way how anchor texts are used. Earlier, we use the “money keywords” aka “exact match keywords” to link back to your website. Right now, after the penguin update, forget about the keywords. Use branded keywords or natural keywords such as “visit website” or “click here” to link back.
Just these 2 changes would change a lot on the effectiveness of article marketing. The bottom line is article marketing still works if the process includes a syndication done in the right way.
About Author:
This information about article marketing is contributed by ArticleSeen article directory which is one of the best places to distribute content after the penguin update. Submit articles to articleseen and spread the word like a wildefire
I had an add request on skype from an American Name. Since that is my official skype id, I had added the contact and asked him how I can help him..
- How many years or you in the service
Me- 7 years
-What SEO do you do
Me-We do mainly manual SEO jobs
-We are a company in Bangalore (then why American Name) and I am from Tamil Nadu. We are a web design company and looking to offer SEO jobs to clients,
Me-That's fine we can help you with our services.
-Can you get my clients website xxx for the keyword YYYY (a five letter most popular keyword with millions of competition)
Me- No we do not offer Keyword positioning services now.
-So what should I do to get the website on the first page.
Me-You have to design a strategy and we can help you execute your seo plan.
-We do web design, If you need web design contact me.
Me-Some of the clients need tableless CSS designs. If you can offer that I can refer you.
-Yes we can do that. Send me the info.
Me-Can I see some sample website so that I can send it to my client.
-No we cannot show you any samples as that will violate our user agreement with client.
Me: We wont contact your client, Its just to see if the designs are good. How will anyone orderfor a service without knowing what we can do.
-That has to be on trust.
Me: (!!!!!!!!!!!&&&&######, Well we talked a lot for 30 minutes and mostly this person was fishing for free information. I ran a background check with his skype name and found him to be a freelancer) Ok Bye for now.
I still am wondering if there is any client in the world who will not let his design company mentioning his website to their potential clients.
The work day started very promising, as there weren’t much clients online to respond. I was looking into some new SEO strategies that seemed to be very much promising. After the lunch break I thought of getting a breakthrough in my research (will reveal soon). AT this point I got a phone call from an Indian. He wanted to speak directly to our administrator regarding some SEO services. Well I put him on my Admin’s phone line as I thought this will be a big fish Client from India with lots of knowledge about SEO.
While I was speaking to my admin, this cosmetic surgeon ringed back again and now it was my time to deal with him. Here is the conversation
Caller: “I spoke to your admin, regarding starting my own SEO company. Basically I am a cosmetic surgeon”
Me: “You gotta be kidding”
Caller: “Man I am a real surgeon but you know the market is down, and I am planning to earn some extra cash and I thought SEO is the best option”
Me: “Okie! But SEO is a deep ocean, you can’t offer a service without knowing all about it”
Caller: “Yes, that’s right but I know a lot about it and now I thought I can gain more knowledge from you guys”
Me: “Alright, can you tell me what you know so far about SEO so that I can continue from that point” (I know the fact that if he knows a lot about SEO it will take weeks for him to explain it to me.)
Caller: But he made that simple “It is making websites appear in the first page of Google results by getting many backlinks”
Me: “Backlinks? See, that’s not the only factor that decides whether the website has to appear in the first page of Google results”
Caller: “I see then what are they?” I told him that it will take months to explain it
Caller: “Well then prepare an email on that and send it to me”
Me: “Will Do” “Click” hung the phone
An email? Even if I write an e-book on SEO, it will be a never ending story. So he is never gonna get the email from me. I am sure that he will start his SEO firm soon (he thinks that all he needs is a laptop plugged online and a few contacts).
Just another day to find a guy killing the great SEO profession.
One of my best clients (name not revealed) rang the phone this morning. Basically he wanted to know whether the telephone line existed. Well I picked the phone and he made a huge sigh of relief. He was satisfied to find atleast one SEO company in India with an active telephone line with a real human answering them. This client himself is a search engine optimization expert. But somehow, the SEO service providers have confused him with plethora of strategies. He is now clueless on what SEO strategy is really the best. And I started explaining him:
1. Is your website rich with fresh and informative content? (This question is the most important one because without fresh content in the site, there is no point in spending thousands of dollars in Off-page SEO)
2. Does your site carry appropriate META tags, titles and descriptions? (Though I am not an expert in On-page SEO I pretended to know at least something)
3. What kind of off-page SEO techniques have you applied to your website so far?
4. How is the result for the off-page SEO?
The client’s words:
His website is of ecommerce type and there is no much content in them as the site just carries products. He has done enough On-page SEO and lots of effective Off-page SEO tasks as well (according to him). I was surprised to hear what he called as effective Off-page SEO (most of them can’t be revealed in public). He has never tried article submission or press release distribution. Some guy who calls himself an expert in SEO has misinformed him that article submission has lost its charm. After spending several dollars for several months on the SEO strategies that he suggested, this client has lost faith in his words.
My SEO Advice
I told him straight away that you cannot spell SEO without article submission and Press Release distribution. In fact, the inexperience of the SEO guy who this client hired is proven by his words that “Article Submission has LOST Its Charm”. Well at this point the Client demanded a proof to support my statement that article submission STILL HAS ITS GLORY. Man I don’t talk without solid proof. I and my colleague have spent several days researching on article marketing and recorded our findings. We forged our findings into a Whitepaper. I pointed this client towards the WhitePaper on Article Marketing. I let this client read the entire “article marketing research result” right away so that I can get some break time to have a cup of fresh Indian Coffee. By the time I finished my coffee, the Client has realized the Importance of article marketing in SEO (with this solid proof, none can ignore the fact).
I later suggested him that, though his site presents only products, he can get product descriptions written and tagged to each product. As this will be fresh content, search engines will love them. As he had native writer under his wings, he said that he will be adding descriptions for all products over the few days.
In a business point of view I failed to get this client make an order for Product Description Writing. However, it was a pleasant chat for me and I was happy to have another person out there to understand the importance of Article Marketing.
