Could content duplication be good?
What do you really want out of your article submissions?
Through this whole process it would be good to keep the main objective in mind, namely:
1. You want to build credibility in your work as an expert
2. You want to create link popularity
3. You want to have source information on the search engines at all times for your relevant keywords.
Really, a lot of people forget about this stuff when they're trying to follow those who claim duplication should be avoided at all cost. But before any action, it's best to consider any repercussions beforehand just to be safe. So lets take a quick look at what should be your objective when submitting or providing information.
Credibility
Have you ever received an email from some big shot marketer telling you that “so and so” has come up with a real solution to a problem and that “you should really listen to this guy”?
That's credibility by referral!
Chances are, unless you get in with the Big Dogs of marketing, you'll never get a recommendation like that, but the point is . . .Referrals make all the difference in the world. The more people you can get pointing at you and what you have to say, the more you'll be seen as a credible expert in your field. And even though you may never have people sending emails out telling their lists to listen to you, you can still create a similar effect by getting others to post your articles on
their sites. After all, when your article is picked up and posted on someone else's site, aren't they saying that your words are credible?
Who wants a bunch of nonsense on their web pages? No, they pick your article because they deem it good information and worthy of their visitors to read, right?
Once again, credibility by referral!
And every time an article directory moderates your article and determines it to be acceptable, they too are referring you as a credible expert. That is of course, if you're article is good.
So, just to make it clear . . .Credibility starts with you providing good information and getting a lot of people to refer to it. Eventually, your name could become synonymous with your field, and you'll have it made. That is, if you keep providing more good information.
Now notice we didn't say “providing the same information,” or “providing the same information in different ways.”
That's because simply submitting variations of the same information will not build your credibility. In fact, it could work in quite the opposite way. If people see that you have a hundred articles that all say the same thing with a few differences, they might conclude that you just don't have anything else to add and that you've reached the limit of your knowledge on the subject. Not good, right?
It would be better to spend your time sorting through all of your knowledge and then release it through a series of articles, rather than “spinning” the same article thinking you have us all fooled. In fact, some article directories will elevate you to expert status and feature your work, if you submit a number of good articles to them.
Won't happen if you're submitting variations of the same article. Remember, the ultimate goal is to sell more of what you're recommending in your bio box. The outcome of your profits will inevitably be determined by how much credibility you have. If people learn that you're someone who knows what you're talking about, they'll be much more inclined to buy what you're selling.
Link Popularity
This is where there's a great deal of confusion about duplication because most of the advice about this is just a bunch of “apples and oranges” mumbo-jumbo. The great anti-duplication teachers like to confuse you with the shady areas between exposure and placement.
Hopefully this will put that all to rest once and for all!
Think of link popularity like voting.
Every time an article directory accepts and posts your article, you get a “yes” vote.
Every time someone visits an article directory and grabs your article and posts it on their own site, that's another “yes” vote.
Every “yes” vote you get says that your article is valuable, and the more you get, the greater the value it has.
If you spread your article out over several variations, you're actually thinning out the number of “yes” votes you get for each variation. So instead of getting thousands of positive votes for one article, you're getting a few votes for many.
So what's the difference?
The more popular an article is, the more the search engines will take notice of it.
The more notice, or (here's that word again), credibility it has, the greater the value in
importance.
And the more important your article is to the masses, the better chance you'll have of the search engines saying, “hey, that looks like important information for this keyword search,” and use it in a primary search position.
Having the same article spread over several variations may not get it to that importance level which will have the search engines looking elsewhere for the information people are searching for.
You may get a listing for several versions of your article, but they won't hold as much clout as one good one with a lot of “yes” votes.
But who cares if you have 5 or 6 links on any given search if they're on page 12? Better to have one on the first page, or even better, in the first position on the first page than the alternative, right?
So if you shoot for popularity, then you may not get as much exposure, but you'll probably get a much better placement in relevant search queries. You can worry about elevating your exposure by producing more articles and proving yourself the expert that you are.
Imagine getting the first 5 placements with 5 different articles! Now that would really be impressive!
Being Always Visible
So now we've seen that submitting your article to as many directories as possible will create a “staggering effect” for its exposure because, though all directories are similar in make up, they're vastly different in the time they take to post your article.
One article posted today will continue to show up as new for possibly a good 6 months on at least some of the directories, and usually the higher ranked, more popular ones. Having your article filter up the line from the lower ranking to the higher ranking directories, rather than giving it an artificial “spammy” look, will more so tend to make it look like its importance is going up as the more respected sites begin to post it.
So we're talking longevity here. And we're talking increased value.
The longer your article is exposed on at least some of the article directories, the better chance you have of it being picked up by people looking for content for their own sites.
So now you have clusters of people using your article on their own sites over a period of time while its still being exposed to directory visitors and subsequently picked up by even more clusters of people.
It can't get much better than that!
Well maybe it can . . .
Suppose you submitted an article two months ago and you watch it slowly get posted
over that period of time. In the meanwhile, you wrote another article a month ago for the same topic and submitted that one.
And just today you finish up yet another article and begin submitting it.
What happens?
Well if you've concentrated your efforts towards being an expert in your field as you
should be, your arsenal of wisdom on the web is beginning to pile up. People visiting the directories with lower PR are seeing you now have 3 articles posted and after reading your latest, decide to check out your earlier two.
“Wow, good stuff,” they say, and grab all three. You now become a “featured author” on a multitude of sites and suddenly you start getting renewed exposure for your older articles.
The search engines index these sites and think, “gee, I thought we were done with that article, but it seems people still think its important.”
Yup, more “yes” votes keep pouring in!
In time, all 3 articles go through the posting process and are now on all the article
directories. More people see you as an authority on your key topic, and you get even more exposure as an expert. And on and on and on.
Geesh, it could take years before the effects of all this could begin wearing off!
Hopefully the “shelf life” of your articles don't outlive the website they refer to. But then again, better that, than having a website with no articles to give it any exposure.
If All Your Friends Were Going To Go Jump Off A Bridge . . .
I don't know about you, but that was one of my mom's favorite sayings when I was a
kid.
“if all your friends were going to jump off the bridge, would you go with them?”
Of course, it was always just her way of saying, “I don't really care where your friends
are going or what they want to do, YOU CAN'T!”
She said that a lot (may she rest in peace).
Over the years I've succeeded in resisting saying that to my kids. They're all grown up
now and none of them have ever considered jumping off a bridge. Good for them :)
But now after being in the Internet Marketing business for a while, and seeing all the
“bridge jumpers” following their leaders to doom through one scheme or another over
and over, I finally find the need to ask the question . . .
If all the Gurus were going to jump off a bridge, would you follow them?
Hopefully not!
Well the “proof is in the pudding!”
Fact:
Google and the other search engines give a great deal of credibility to the article directories. We know this because they are among the fastest ranking sites on the web. At least 95% of all their content is duplicated somewhere else, and in most cases, in a lot of different places.
Fact:
Exposure involves credibility, not just numbers. After all, if you were an idiot, would it benefit you if a lot of people saw it for themselves?
Exposure as a credible expert in your field is what will bring you the most rewards.
Showing the world that you know a lot about what you're talking about will give your recommendations the clout they need to keep you in business.
Fact:
Submitting three or four different articles is far better than submitting hundreds of the
same article worded differently. This show that you really are an expert in your field because you're continuously bringing out new information about your subject matter.
Fact:
Every time your article is posted on an article directory, or is used by someone who's visited one, it increases the credibility and popularity level for that article. The more popular an article becomes, the more important (valuable) it is to the search engines.
Fact:
It is virtually impossible to raise the same level of importance for many variations of one article, than it is for one good unchanged article submitted to a lot of places. Every article variation is treated as a separate article. The more variations you have spread over the web, the less people will grab each one (read: the less yes votes any one variation will get).
Fact:
Submitting one article to many article directories will give it longevity. It can take anywhere from 1 hour up to 6 months to get an article posted on a directory, depending on the page rank, the number of people moderating incoming articles, and the number of people submitting.
As an article gets posted over time on the different directories, different groups of people find it and use it for their own site, thus building its level of importance over an extended period of time.
Fact:
You're the expert.
Use your own articles;
write more, spin less;
stay away from bridges!