Online Plagiarism and The Importance of Original Content

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 by mikeq

One of the things that I find plagues the Internet is the sheer amount of plagiarized content that some web site developers think they can use to boost their search engine rankings without any real effort or investment. I can tell you right now, they are dead wrong. In fact, nothing is more crippling to web sites than the inclusion of duplicate content (either on the same site or with other web sites).

Using plagiarized content is unprofessional, unfair, criminal and downright stupid. It may seem like a great way to get some free content. However, once search engines begin to recognize that you have duplicate content, your ranking will drop substantially at best and your web site will be shut down at worst.

Plagiarism – A Lot More Common Than You Might Think

One of the most memorable experiences that I had with plagiarism was when I was reviewing a test article from a potential writer. The resume checked out and the samples were solid so I gave them a test to see how they would respond to a time limit and make sure the writing in their samples matched the test. When I received the content, I did what I always do when I handle content for the company, checked it on multiple plagiarism checkers. I was shocked to see a 375 word match when the article was only 400 words long.

In addition, something about the matching content seemed very familiar to me. After double checking, I found that the article actually came from an old article directory that I submitted content to when I first began writing on the Internet. In fact, I discovered that, although my name was not on the article because I was ghost writing at the time, the article that the writer had plagiarized was actually mine. Obviously, the writer was informed of their foolish mistake and was not accepted to write for Content Customs.

Checking Content for Plagiarism

At Content Customs, every piece of content is checked for plagiarism both in our directory (to ensure that a writer has not copied work that they had previously completed but has not yet been published by the client) and against the pages on the Internet. One of our favorite plagiarism checkers is Copyscape. Searches are only 5 cents each and the limit of the amount of words you can check on each search is a nice 2,000. For a 10,000 word eBook, this means that you only have to break it into 5 sections to get accurate search results.

When I show people how Copyscape works, you can play a fun (but terribly revealing) game to show how big of a problem Internet plagiarism actually is. Search for your favorite topic on Wikipedia and copy and paste the first paragraph of the article into the Copyscape search field. You will immediately find that perhaps hundreds of pages that have copied just this paragraph and used it as their own will pop up. In fact, this is probably the only way you will ever see these web sites as they are likely buried on page 15 or 16 on Google search results.

If you are a writer, editor, writing manager or web site owner, Copyscape can be an essential and cheap tool for you to use to make sure your content is unique and you are not subject to any plagiarism claims or penalties. From the moment I started writing online until now, I have used Copyscape to protect myself, my writers and my clients from plagiarism. From time to time, an innocent mistake happens where writers are nailed by plagiarism checkers for content that they created themselves. After all, the Internet is a large and ever expanding place. By making sure your content is always unique, you can make sure that you always fairly and proactively add to it.

To try Copyscape out for yourself, you can visit their web site at http://www.copyscape.com.

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Managing Freelance Writers

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 by mikeq

Let’s be honest. Sometimes, managing a team of freelance writers can be a lot like herding cats. You are often not aware of their schedules, they have commitments and make excuses that you have to accept as fact (I’m too sick to write, My computer is broken, My Internet is down, My computer deleted the work, etc.) because they work from home and you might live thousands of miles away. Writing can fluctuate from day to day and sometimes it can feel like you are powerless to motivate them.

For large web site owners with a writing staff and company management teams, all of the issues should seem fairly familiar unless you have struck gold with a solid stable of talented writers. While some people are born to be managers, the rest of us could benefit from a set of guidelines to help writers create good content when you need it and maintain a reliable work schedule.

1. The Golden Rule: Accept that you are working with freelancers and treat them like professionals, because they are. Just because a person works from home does not mean that they are any less professional than a person that works in an office. Treat them like peons and you will be treated in the same way.
2. Be Available: If you expect your writers to be available, you should be available as well or have another manager on shift to handle questions or concerns. Nothing compares to having a leader ready and available to make quick edits, talk to writers and speak to clients. Paying a good editor a salary or hourly rate is a very good investment if you can count on them to keep your writers busy and motivated.
3. Always be Clear: Make sure your writers know the deadline, how and when they will be paid for their work, what the assignment is, how long the content needs to be, etc. The more information that you can give a writer, the more confident they will be and the better the quality of the content will be.
4. Delegate and Assist: It’s ok to help out on a large project, especially if it needs to be done quickly and you are understaffed. However, always turn to your writers before doing something yourself. They may need the work to pay their rent and constantly taking the “fun” work or doing too much of it yourself can take money away from your writer’s pockets and make them feel like you do not trust them.
5. Handle Revisions Appropriately: If you do receive a revision from a client, understand that it is a necessary part of the process. Do not get angry with the writer, but make sure that they know which revisions need to be made and why. Give them time to take care of them and trust them to consider them. If you notice the same mistakes happening multiple times, mention it but always remain calm.
6. Schedules: Give your writers the freedom to choose the work that they do when possible and give them a wide time margin for writing. As work from home writers, they will likely not be comfortable writing 9-5 every day. However, they should let you know when they plan to be available or how much work they can handle each day. Above all, if you ask a writer to be available, make sure that they have work to do. Nothing is worse than requiring a writer to be available and then making them sit there waiting for content to write. They will quickly lose interest and when a ton of work does come in, you will have a hard time getting them back in the game.
7. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly: Always be willing to reward good work over time. Give your writers more responsibility (and perhaps, more money) as they do solid work. Work with less than quality writers to make steps toward creating content. Recognize mistakes and writing issues that will not be able to be fixed and “remove the problem”. The amount of time that you waste on a poor writer can be detrimental to your profits or the livelihood of the company that you work for.

Posted in Content Creation, Freelance Writing | No Comments »

Search Engine Optimization: Keyword Placement

Monday, January 25th, 2010 by mikeq

One of the mistakes that beginning SEO content writers often make is misinterpreting keyword placement and how they function in the entire piece of content. Indeed, permutations of a keyword phrase can be very valuable in increasing an article’s search engine value. However, to get the most value out of each SEO article, you must consider how each keyword is placed in an article and how it contributes to the whole piece.

What Not to Do

While many writers consider only keyword saturation as being important to SEO, there is a great deal more to take into account. After all, based on only this consideration, keyword stuffing would be the best SEO technique. But keyword stuffing is actually one of the worst things that you can do when writing content. If you are unfamiliar with keyword stuffing, think of an article that includes the keywords and only the keywords. Of course, this is an extreme example. Much more common would be an example like the following:

“There are many birds in North America refrigerator. While these birds can vary in both size refrigerator and color refrigerator, much of their anatomy refrigerator is often similar.”

You might assume that this piece of content would rank well for “refrigerator” and “birds”, it would not rank well for long or be of any value to visitors looking for solid information on birds or refrigerators.

Placing SEO Keywords Effectively

There are several rules that you can follow to make sure that your keywords are effective and properly placed. Test your article against the following guidelines:

1. Do the keywords exactly match the keyword phrases (birds of North America vs. North American birds)?
2. Do your subtitles contain the keywords of the title?
3. Does the first sentence of your article include the primary keyword or keyword phrase?
4. Are there no descriptive words like “the” or “it” that can be replaced with keywords like “birds” or “North America”?

If you were able to answer “Yes” to all of these questions, your article is in very good shape. Although SEO optimization is a great deal more complicated than following the above 4 rules, you can quickly begin generating good content that has the potential to rank well on search engines.

Remember that the highest ranked content depends on a variety of factors that determine how search engines determine its value. In many cases, first page ranked content has more links pointing back to it than lower ranking content on the same subject, a richer (yet proper) saturation of keywords and a web site that justifies the content with related material. While you might need to do much more work with a good piece of SEO content to achieve high rankings, you must start with properly placed keywords before moving on to any more complicated or labor intensive SEO techniques.

Posted in Article Marketing, Content Creation, SEO Copywriting | No Comments »

Working From Home – Is it as Great As People Think?

Friday, January 22nd, 2010 by mikeq

At Content Customs, some upper management and editors work from local offices to better serve our clients. However, the lifeblood of the company is work from home writers. When I first started working from home, many of my friends and family asked me the same question, “How did you get so lucky?.” Indeed, when I first started doing it, I agreed. Nothing compared to waking up and starting work without having to leave my apartment, especially during the brutal winters we often experience in Upper Michigan.

However, as time passed, I began to experience some of the problems that come with working from home.  Don’t get me wrong, working from home has a great deal of benefits. You are in control of your schedule and work habits. There is no boss breathing over your shoulder (In many occassions, you are your own boss). You can set up your work environment how you feel most comfortable without worrying about offending coworkers or customers. Working from home is great. However, let’s take a look at some of the common problems that come with working from home and how you can deal with them.

Working From Home is a Lot of Work…

One of the first problems that arises from home is the dreaded distraction. If you have a family, they might assume that you are available because you are at home. You might be in the middle of a project and suddenly be interrupted by an excited child waiting to play.  This works the same way with friends and roommates. One of the things that you can do to help with this problem is to set a schedule or develop a system. Put a sign up on your home office door or speak to your friends and family to tell them that when you are in your office, you might as well be on the moon. Help them to understand that, without your work from home time, you can not work as effectively.

The second most common problem is finding time to work. When you don’t have a boss, it can be tempting to take care of the things that you want to do during the day when they come up. You might decide to get your grocery shopping done before noon or take a trip to the bank. Set a schedule every week and stick to it. There is no reason that you need to work from 9-5 if that is what made you consider working from home in the first place. As long as you set a reasonable schedule and stick to it, you will be able to focus your efforts on making sure that you get a decent paycheck every week.

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Generating Good Article Topics

Thursday, January 21st, 2010 by mikeq

One of the most frustrating aspects of developing a web site is generating good article topics. This often requires a great deal of research and thought. One of the temptations that I often struggle with is getting away from the topics that I know I have experience in and thinking as if I was the reader of the web site. Beyond considering which keywords will function most effectively on a web site, think of which topics would be most valuable to the visitors of the web site.

For example, consider a web site focused on playing the guitar as a beginner. Some of the things that beginning guitar players might want to know right off the bat include:

• How to Choose a Good Guitar
• Finding Beginning Guitar Method Books
• Replacing a Broken Guitar String
• The Process of Tuning a Guitar
• Finding the Best Guitar Sheet Music

You might not be very familiar with beginning guitar method books. However, many visitors to your web site will be very interested in choosing such books. In addition, such a topic also gives you the opportunity to take advantage of some affiliate programs that will give you a percentage every time a visitor to your web site buys one of their method books using your links.

Researching Article Topics

One of the biggest mistakes that you can make when researching which article topics you want is relying on one or two other web sites to determine which ones will be of the most value. Instead, one of your first stops should be the forums. What are people talking about now? There may be posts on a web site that are years old and no longer of interest to many people. However, forum posts are dated. You might find out about recent news in your web site’s subject matter that you previously did not know about.

Another way that you can get some free information about good article topics is by literally asking professionals in that field about what things they consider when practicing their craft. By simply sending an email to some selected professionals, you might be surprised at how much good, free advice you can get. Educators in particular will be very familiar with the questions that beginners tend to ask and typically enjoy giving advice to people that need it.

Finally, consider investing the time in taking part in the activity that your web site centers around. By doing so, you can be your own contributor. For example, if you decide to start a sewing web site but do not have a great deal of experience with sewing, try it out for a while. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. What materials do I need to begin?
2. How can I find the best sewing patterns?
3. How long does it take to sew?
4. What are some of the issues that I have been having as a beginner in sewing?
5. Where do I prefer to sew?
6. Are there any resources that I have found useful in learning to sew?

You don’t have to become a master at the craft but by taking the time to try it out for a while, you will have much more insight into exactly what your visitors will want to know.

Posted in Article Marketing, Content Creation, Freelance Writing | No Comments »

Your Web Site – The First Step in Any Solid Business Plan

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 by mikeq

I was discussing some options for web site development with the owner of Content Customs today, Corry Cummings, and he made a very thoughtful remark that I thought I would share with you today. Every page of content on your web site is another door that your visitors can go through to find you. At first, this seemed like a fairly basic concept. Then, I started to think about how often I talk to site owners that do not keep this concept in mind.

Any online business plan must begin with web site development. It is simply not enough to launch a marketing campaign and hope that the visitors will buy your product or service without a solid base of operations. If you really think about it, your web site is the image that your company shows the world. If it is poorly or under-developed, it has the potential to turn visitors off once they follow the link in your advertising campaign (whether it is through mass emails, forum posts or press releases).

Using Your Web Site as your Marketing Campaign

Many web developers will argue that your web site is really your marketing campaign. This is absolutely true. By developing a large web site with good SEO content, you can minimize or even eliminate the need for other marketing techniques like emails and press releases. In fact, keep these rules in mind when deciding which content is best for your business plan:

1. Build from your home page. Your site map is one of the most important aspects of site traffic. Make every portion of your web site only a click or two away.
2. Use press releases and sales letters as supplements, not means. These are both tools to bring attention to your web site, not replace it.
3. Generate as many keywords as possible. Never hope that potential customers will search for your company’s name rather than the product you offer. If they’re doing that, they are already aware of your services.
4. Never, ever stop. Some of the top ranking web sites have thousands and thousands of pages of content. Others might have as little as 50. If you are not seeing significant increases in site traffic, this does not mean that you have failed. It simply means that you have more room for growth.

Always investigate opportunities for improving your web site. You may find ways to add content without even having to change your web site map. For example, adding content to existing articles to add keywords can be very effective. As long as you continue to develop and evolve your web site content, your business plan is marked for success.

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Developing Quality Internet Content Writers

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 by mikeq

We get a great deal of applications at Content Customs from writers looking for freelance work. One of the first things that I look for when considering the application is the quality of their writing samples and how they would function in an online environment. The reason for this is simple: A good writer is not necessarily a good Internet writer. There are several qualities that a good content writer must have to function successfully in an online environment. While it is great to find writers that have these qualities right off the bat, good managers can also take good writers and develop them into quality Internet content writers.

Basic Content Writer Requirements

First, let’s take a look at the basic qualities that a writer should have before they can write for the Internet. These qualities are:

• Ability to research with little direction or suggestions.
• Proper attention to spelling and grammar.
• Able to stay on subject and create editorial flow and pacing to everything they write.
• Attention to details.
• Honesty and reliability.

Obviously, the most valuable writers are the ones that can draft good content with minimal instructions. If you have to give extensive instructions or research credible web sites for the writer, you might as well write the content yourself. Granted, questions show that the writer cares enough about the subject to make sure that they do it correctly. However, too many questions can be frustrating and time wasting. I have found that some of the best content is created when the writer is given the freedom to format and develop the content creatively.

One of the most important attributes of a writer (regardless of their chosen field) is honesty and reliability. Just like any other content company, Content Customs has a no tolerance plagiarism policy and requires that deadlines be met every time. Duplicate content is a constant struggle online as some freelance writers will often sell the same article to multiple clients. If you are slow to post content on your website, you may find that 15 other websites have already published the content that you purchased fair and square when you do post. If you find that a writer needs to copy the work of others to create articles, they are not worth your time and will not make it far in a professional writing career.

Turning Good Writers into Good Internet Writers

For the most part, good writers will already have a strong foundation for Internet writing without even knowing it. However, the top 5 things that throw new Internet writers off when they first begin writing are:

1. Prepositions
2. Passive vs. Active Voice
3. Keyword Optimization
4. Word Counts
5. Formats

Prepositions: From the time that you learn basic English grammar, you have probably had a basic concept drilled into your head – Never end a sentence with a preposition. However, this often changes online, especially in conversational writing. Always type as you would speak to a person. Speaking with proper grammar often sounds tense and unnatural. In conversational writing, this is much the same.

Passive vs. Active Voice: This is one of the hardest things to develop in an Internet content writer. This is usually because, for the most part, many people do not notice that it is a problem. A good rule of thumb is that the subject should always come before the object. This is especially a problem when writers attempt to use passive voice to beef up word counts without technically adding more information. Active voice is clean prose that is easy to read. One example I like to use with my writers is:

• Active/Correct – The frog jumped over the log.
• Passive/Incorrect – The log was jumped over by the frog.

Keyword Optimization: The foundation of good Internet writing is keyword optimization. Although there is a great deal involved with search engine optimization, content production essentially revolves around keyword saturation (not over-saturation) and placement. In general, the following rules can help with proper keyword optimization:

1. Always include the title of the article in the first sentence.
2. Use permutations of the title throughout the article.
3. If the title is long, splitting into smaller sections is almost as valuable as using the entire title.
4. Make a list of all the possible keywords in the title and use them throughout the article.
5. Avoid just shoving keywords in wherever you can and try to find ways to place them naturally throughout the content.

Word Counts: When you write for school or create a work of fiction, word count is typically not your primary consideration. However, word count is a sizeable factor in good Internet writing. For example, if a client requests a 400 word article, a good Internet writer should be able to estimate how big the article will be and plan ahead to be able to cover all of the information that the title requests in the given room. Consistently missing word counts can cause a variety of problems including unhappy clients, wasted time and unfocused writing.

Formats: Usually this is not as much of a problem as the other four common problems but is still something to consider. Most writers choose their favorite program (Microsoft Word, for example), and stick to it during their entire writing careers. They get used to having spell checking and auto formatting features backing them up and are shocked to find that most Internet writing is done in a plain text program such as Notepad. While there are advanced text editors that have some of these features, good Internet writers will need to learn how to be their own editor and properly format content with the use of HTML.

Learning to Write for the Internet

Above all, good Internet writers are created through experience. No amount of rules or guidelines can create a quality online writer. In the end, it takes years for a writer to be able to visually estimate word count without having to check and learn which writing techniques work and which ones do not. Remember, give new writers time to develop into quality Internet content writers. With a good editor backing you up, making the investment in a skilled writer that may not have enough experience in online writing is always worth your time.

Posted in Content Creation, Freelance Writing | No Comments »

Welcome to the Content Customs Blog

Monday, January 18th, 2010 by mikeq

Thank you for visiting our website and taking the time to check out our Blog section. Here you will find the latest site and company news as well as information about all things writing, editing and web marketing. Consider subscribing to make sure that you are always up to date on what’s going on with Content Customs and to get some insight into the services we offer and the lives of a community of freelance writers, editors and managers.

Every day, you will be able to find posts on a variety of subjects including article marketing, content creation, blogging, freelance writing, Ebook development and press release distribution. You will also find information written by and for writers to assist them in being successful as a freelance writer or editor. While we hope that you choose to apply for a job with our company or take advantage of some of our client SEO services, the true purpose of this Blog is to give our visitors the information they need to make good decisions about content creation and search engine optimization.

The Value of Good Information

This brings me to my main topic of today’s post, information. When writers create web content, they have a great deal of considerations to make the content a piece of valuable information. In essence, there are four aspects to successful content creation for the Internet:

• Search Engine Optimization
• Information Value
• Organization
• Quality

Think of each of these aspects as the legs of a chair. Even omitting one aspect (chair leg) will cause the entire piece of content to collapse. Ask yourself how often you have done a Google search and clicked on the top result only to find that the content is just stuffed with keywords and poorly written at best. Sure, it may get a lot of hits. I’m willing to bet that the majority of the people that visit such a site immediately leave for the next hit down the search result list. High search engine rankings do not automatically turn into profits. Once you get people to visit your website, you need to find ways to keep them there or recommend the website to their friends and colleagues.

As far as SEO is concerned, it is one of the most important aspects of website marketing. However, never give into the temptation to call a website successful because it has used SEO to make it to the coveted top of perhaps a single search term. The websites that ultimately enjoy long term success are well written and organized to be easy to read and act as a valuable piece of information. If website visitors begin to consider your information to be credible and worthwhile, they will undoubtedly return. I like to relate websites to any other, offline business.

Real World Example of Product Organization

If you walked into Walmart (or another similar retailer) and found that all of the products in the store were poorly labeled, not organized on the shelves and, worst of all, not at all what you expected in terms of quality, how likely would you be to make a purchase or return when you needed something else?  Sure, the retailer you visit might have the largest sign in the neighborhood but it will quickly gain the bad reputation that it deserves.

You could, of course, argue that a lack of organization in a store might encourage customers to make other purchases beyond what they originally came to buy. However, this is a very small consideration of modern businesses and it often does not work as well online. If you have content consistently incorrectly categorized in order to persuade readers to make an additional purchase, you will likely anger more visitors than you convince to purchase an additional product.

On the same note, your store could have some of the finest inventory in your community at the best prices, but if customers cannot find it, it will likely fail. It might be difficult to compare a large retailer with a large website as, more often than not, a community will quickly pass around the word that you have a solid store with excellent prices. However, failing to use SEO and proper marketing to obtain search engine rankings near the top is much like having an offline business buried under ground with no points of entry. Indeed, content quality is very important. Without proper SEO and marketing, however, even the best written content can quickly be rendered useless.

 

I hope that you enjoy this Blog as it continues to grow and come back to visit often. Please leave comments about your favorite business or online marketing story, feedback on this post or anything at all. Most of all, we hope that you find some of the information that you need to be a more successful writer, online marketer, website owner, etc. After all, nothing can be accomplished without good information. I hope that you decide to trust us to provide you with just that.

Best Wishes,

MikeQ

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