Lammo.net: Affiliate Marketing Blog

When it comes to affiliate websites, "content is king", is an overused, but nonetheless appropriate, maxim. "Content", though, does not mean any old content. Like content destined for "in print" publications, content for the Web should be well written – that is, free from spelling, punctuation, grammatical and semantic errors (Yes, I know!) – clear, concise and easy to read, but, as importantly, it should also be unique, relevant and rich in the keywords that a particular website is targeting. The content of a website creates a first impression – good, bad, or indifferent – of your affiliate business, and may be instrumental in selling your affiliate products and services to potential customers. Furthermore, carefully crafted, keyword rich, content can increase the visibility of your website to search engine crawlers, in turn, increasing the size of your target audience.

Content Writing for the Web

Content for the Web covers just about anything that is intended to be read on the Web, including copywriting for SEO (”Search Engine Optimisation”), press releases, blogging, etc.. The uniqueness and relevance of content are, however, of paramount importance, if a website is to achieve, and maintain, a high search engine ranking.

So, while it may be tempting to acquire content from a website offering purportedly “free” reprints of articles, do bear in mind that such articles may not have been solicited – or, indeed, checked for copyright violations – entirely scrupulously. You may find, therefore, that the integrity of your website is compromised, both in terms of search engine ranking, and in the eyes of the law. Search engines typically employ a “duplicate content” filter, which detects the presence of the same content on more than one website, and penalises both sites accordingly. Similarly, you may find that if you do post plagiarised content on your site – whether you acquire it from an on-line reprint service, or simply cut and paste it from elsewhere on the Web – that the owner of the content may simply ask you to remove it, or pursue the violation of copyright more vigorously. Either way, the inclusion of content that is not unique to your website achieves very little.

Another approach is to take existing content from other websites and use an automated software tool to “spin”, or reword, it, so that unique content is created. This process typically involves switching words, at random, with synonyms found in a thesaurus, throughout an entire article. The end product can only ever be as good as the software tool employed – many, unfortunately, are not very sophisticated – and is, at best, mediocre, and, at worst, comical. Not only may you end up with indecipherable gobbledegook, but search engine spiders are intelligent enough to detect the “footprint” left by spinning tools, such that websites containing such content are ignored, or penalised, in terms of page ranking.

Writing content manually is therefore really the only way to ensure that it is unique, but this, in turn, presents its own challenges to your affiliate business. You can, of course, write the content yourself. Given multi-faceted nature of an affiliate business, however, it is unlikely that you have the time and resources to devote to the task, so you will probably looking to outsource the writing of proper content, in one way or another. There are any number of Internet sites on which you can post content writing projects, for prospective writers to bid on, and it may be possible to generate content in this way for a few dollars per article. However, as you might anticipate, this level of remuneration is unlikely to attract writers of the highest quality – many writers who are prepared to work for a pittance are, in fact, offshore writers, whose first language is not English – and you are likely to receive exactly what you pay for.

Researching, and writing, effective copy for the Web requires time, and no little skill, so you should be prepared to pay a little extra for it. Information should, for example, be presented coherently, in short, structured sentences, which everyone can understand quickly, regardless of their background. Web content writers should also be familiar with the subtle ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’ of SEO, so that they can “hit the ground running”, and produce effective, human readable content – rather than simply cramming the content with keywords – with minimum supervision.

Further Website content writing Information

Improve Your CV - CV advice and interview help. Find samples of CVs and get advice on how to write a cover letter. Sample interview questions and other job search details are also available…  
improveyourcv.co.uk

Keyword Cruncher - The keyword analysis tool for analysing keyword data from Wordtracker. Sort or combine keyword lists and print your own Wordtracker data….  
keywordcruncher.com

Web Development Company - Professional Offshore Web Development and Web Application Development Company. The firm also specialises in online media streaming and broadcasting, social networking, widget creation, custom web applications development and facebook application development….  
moveyourweb.net

Search Engine Optimisation for Global Campaigns - Israel Search Engine Optimisation and Internet Marketing since 1998. The firm specialises in SEO, PPC, Conversion Optimisation and Web Analytics…..  
aims.co.il

Professional Writing Services - Word-Mart offers professional writing services to individuals, corporations, institutions and students at a cost effective rate. Writing tips are also available…  
word-mart.com

Easy Way To Write - Writers` website with free writing tips on how to write the easy way for writers of all genres. Find resources on fantasy writing, website content writing, non-fiction writing and more…  
easywaytowrite.com

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!