Article Wrangling

Folks who want to take the easy way out when populating their Web sites
with content snatch up as many reprint articles as they can. (Reprint articles
refer to that small pool of articles that gets replicated out onto a gazillion
Web sites, kind of like that Agent Smith guy in The Matrix.) You can get
reprint articles anywhere. A ton of content syndicates are online where you
can purchase articles for a few dollars, but so can everyone else.
You can even use public domain works — those written articles and books
for which copyright has expired and thus have slipped back into the public
domain. You can publish them without the permission of the author, but
again, so can everyone else.
If you want truly original content, you have to do it the hard way — you have
to write it or hire someone else to write it.
Creating original content
Writing your own articles and blog posts isn’t as hard as it sounds unless you
have hundreds of Web pages to populate, which could become a very timeconsuming
effort. If that’s the case, you’ll have to use some reprints, but it’s
still best if you try to keep the most important pages on your site filled with
original content.
already have a list of ideas based on what you know your visitors are looking
for, spend about an hour brainstorming some ideas. You won’t use them
all, and some of them will be just plain silly, but you’ll come up with some
good ideas. Here’s a secret every writer knows: The more you write, the more
ideas you have.
When it’s time to actually write the articles for your Web site, a few basic
principles should be applied. These principles help make it easy for your site
visitors to read your articles. The short list looks like this:
Article layout: The experience of reading on-screen is very different
from reading on paper. On-screen, it’s much easier to get lost. Eye strain
is also much more common when you focus on a computer screen for
too long. Computer screens have an invisible bar that scrolls across the
screen refreshing the image constantly. If you’ve ever seen a computer
on TV that has a black line scrolling through it, that’s what I’m talking
about.
You don’t see this line because of the rate that it rolls across your
screen, but it causes slight vision anomalies that your eyes pick up on,
even though it doesn’t register in your brain. These anomalies are what
cause eye strain.
One way to combat eye strain is to keep your articles as sparse as possible.
That doesn’t mean skimping on the content but does means you
need to use lots of white space — open space without words — and use
a type font that’s screen-reading friendly.
It works best when you’re laying out your articles if you single space (or
even use a space and a half) between each paragraph of type. Also try
to keep your paragraphs short and resist the urge to pack everything,
kitchen-sink style, into a single sentence. Long sentences are easy to get
lost in.
Between paragraphs, use a double space. The extra white space
between paragraphs gives the eyes a second to rest before moving into
the new text.
Reading-friendly colors: Color can be your best friend or your worst
enemy online. The first thing to remember when dealing with Web site
colors is that colors display differently on-screen than they do on paper —
and colors display slightly differently on different screens. So test your
colors in the real world — online rather than on paper. It wouldn’t hurt
to take a peek at your Web masterpiece from a few different computers.
The second thing to keep in mind when dealing with colors is that computers
are already prone to causing eyestrain, so if you use wild colors
on your Web site, that exacerbates the problem. Believe me: Nothing’s
worse than clicking through a link to find a Web site with a black or dark
blue background and yellow type. It’s hard to read and will send your
readers clicking back to where they came from.
It’s always better to stick with muted colors, and white or black text.
Some of the most successful Web sites online have white backgrounds
with black text. These combinations are not only natural, they’re also
eye friendly. Even a black background with white text can get tiring
very quickly. So, if you absolutely insist that your Web site have broad
swaths of color, try to make it something that you don’t mind staring
at for five to ten minutes. If you can’t read a whole article in the color
scheme that you choose for your site, find a different color scheme. If
you don’t, your visitors will go elsewhere.
Titles and headings: Because reading is much more of a chore online,
many people don’t completely read everything. Those who do read
everything skim a page first just to make sure it’ll be worth their time to
read through it. That means you need to catch your visitors’ attention as
quickly as possible.
The best way to do that is with your article or blog post titles and headers.
Titles are the first impression you get to make with your article.
They should be catchy and in a larger font than the rest of the article.
It’s also a good idea to make them bold to stand out.
Headings are the mini-titles that signal new sections of your article or
blog post. Like titles, they should be larger than the text surrounding
them (but not as large as the title size) and should be in bold type-face.
This makes them both easy to skim and easier to read.
You want your headings to be catchy, but they need to be descriptive
as well. It does no good at all to use a header like, “Lost in Space,” when
your article is about pruning your prize roses. Readers won’t get it, so
they won’t connect the dots. A better heading might be something like
“A Snip in Time.”
There’s an added bonus to using apt titles and headings in your articles —
titles and headers are often closely examined by search engine crawlers
in their ongoing attempts to correctly categorize your site. The crawler
pounces on titles and headings to determine the content on your site,
so be sure to fill such elements with appropriate keywords and phrases
whenever possible.
Links within articles: One last element that you should include in
your articles and blog posts is links to other, related articles and blog
posts, both on your Web site and on others’ Web sites. Linking to other
resources provides additional information for your site visitors. Usually,
those visitors will click through those links and then click back to the
page from which they came. If you worry about visitors clicking away
from your site, never to return, set your links up so that they open in a
new window. Opening links in a new window keeps your Web site open
and in front of the visitors. When they’re finished examining the site
you’ve linked to, they can close the window and be right back on your
Web site.
Another advantage to using links to other resources is that when you
create links within your content, you’re adding to your link structure, a
facet of your Web site that search engine crawlers consider when ranking
your Web site.
Think of a link structure as the framework of links that you create on your
Web site. The framework includes internal links — those links that connect
your pages within your site — and external links, which lead visitors away
from your site. It also includes links that lead to your site from other pages.
Although it’s true that you have a little less control over how many other sites
link to your site, don’t underestimate the power of a little you scratch my back
and I’ll scratch yours negotiating. You can offer free articles to other Web sites
that include a link back to your site, for example, or you can just exchange
links with other Web sites.
The key is to keep a good balance of the links to other pages on your site and
the links to other pages off your site, and work diligently to bring other links
into your site from relevant sources. Links from Web pages that are unrelated
are much less useful than links from relevant pages. Just remember that
having too many internal links or too many external links could be more detrimental
than helpful. Try to keep an even mix of internal and external links.
Creating your own content isn’t difficult. It can take a little time, but when
you get the hang of formatting your articles and blog posts for the Web, it
goes faster, making it almost as easy as writing down your thoughts.
You’ll be rewarded for putting out the effort to come up with original content.
Web surfers are looking for new, original, and helpful information online.
Surfers who log on to the Internet do so for many reasons, but the numberone
reason stated by surfers is to find information. If the information you
provide is fresh and new, you’ll have more (and higher quality) visitors than
would ever be possible if you were using recycled content.
Hiring someone
Some Web site owners just don’t have the time to write their own content. If
that’s you, you don’t have to lose out on the value of original content. Instead
of doing it yourself, you can hire someone to do it for you.
Hiring someone, of course, means paying them. You can put ads on the Web
for writers to produce content for your site for free, but you get what you pay
for. In every case, the writer who’s willing to work for free has no (or very
little) experience, and many of them have no talent.
That said, exceptions to the rule do exist. Once in a while, you can find a
great writer, with experience, who’s willing to work for free because she loves
to see her name in print. This might work out for you one-tenth of a percent
of the time. The rest of the time, it’s just more headache than it’s worth.
You can, however, hire a writer without breaking the bank. Good writers are
often willing to work for small amounts of money (say $10 to $50 per article)
if the exposure is right, and if the person or company requesting the work
pays quickly and consistently. It also helps when articles aren’t too involved.
If what you’re looking for is a 1,000 word piece with three interviews, however,
you’re not likely to find a good writer to do it for $50. However, if you’re
willing to pay $200–$400, you won’t have a problem finding writers.
If you do decide that hiring a writer is the way to go, you need to get (and give)
contractual specifications in writing. Even if it’s nothing more than an e-mail
that states the guidelines for the article, the size of the article, the due date,
and the pay, you have to have something that both you and the writer agree
on. Then stick to your side of the bargain.
You may encounter writers who say they’ll provide what you’re looking for,
but then don’t. It happens, and the only way to be sure you’re getting someone
who won’t leave you high and dry is to check references. Treat writers
just as you would employees. Make sure they are who they say they are.
Then, be flexible about how the writer goes about writing the article you
request. As long as the article is turned in on time and meets the specifications
that you set forth in the beginning, don’t bug them about how they get
to that point. (Unless plagiarism’s involved — then you must get involved,
but there’s more about that near the end of this chapter.)
One other option that you have — one which could potentially cost you a
lot less than hiring a writer — involves inviting guest writers to put together
articles for your site. You have to use caution with this method, too, though.
Guest writers sometimes write a few articles that they pass around to everyone
on the Internet, which makes their contribution to your site not nearly as
valuable as if they wrote the article specifically for your site.
You can ask for that specificity, though. When you approach a guest writer,
nothing’s wrong with asking him to write an article specifically for your site.
Make sure you lay out exactly what you’re looking for, though. Usually it’s
okay to ask for the right to publish the article first for a specified amount of
time (like six months) before the writer allows others to publish it. You also
want to make sure you have the right to archive the article on your Web site
so that it remains available to users even after that six-month period (or however
long you choose) is over.
In exchange for writing for you, most guest writers want a small blurb or link
pointing back to their products and services. It’s usually worth it. In fact, it’s
so worth it that many companies have a stable of writers that write these
types of articles for them all the time. They offer these articles to all publications
that target their own audiences. It saves the company marketing dollars
and provides great content for your site.
One caveat when it comes to guest writers: If you plan to use a guest writer,
make sure the article that’s provided isn’t too sales-y. When someone comes
to your site to read an article, he doesn’t come because he wants to be sold to.
He comes because he’s looking for information. Nothing’s wrong with making
a recommendation for products or services, and nothing’s wrong with allowing
guest writers to include a small paragraph about themselves or their products
and services at the end of the article, but it still needs to be as objective
as possible.
A guest writer’s purpose is always to sell something. Whether that something
is a product or service, there’s an ulterior motive. It’s your job, as the site
owner, to keep that motive in check so you’re not running a big advertising
service. Always remember to give your visitors the information that they’re
looking for first and foremost. If you do, everything else is gravy.