Saturday 6 April 2013

Paying for Guest Posts

Google consistently looks to punish websites that exploit their search results for financial gain. Amazingly there are literally thousands of SEO 'experts' offering you the kind of advice that is likely to get your site punished in the next Google update, by then of course you will have noticed a surge in your impressions and therefore been happy to give them the money. Of course if the site that they have linking to your website is found to be in breach of any of Google's myriad of rules and regulations, which of course they would never spell out for fear of people getting round them with black hat techniques, then you will find any of the benefit from that link be removed. There will not necessarily be any action taken against your site but in essence the service you have paid for will be worthless.

The move away from links as a strategy to more content marketing it seems has now become awash with those wishing to get your hands on your cash for doing very little. Traditional Content Marketing was a marketplace for good quality writers to connect with companies and websites that wish to have some content written by an experienced writer. This was a great market and led to many top websites investing millions in content to ensure their brand was well known but also had content that was useful for the user.


Getting Content - Paid writing services



The practice of hiring writers to write content is traditional but very popular way for companies and websites to achieve better rankings by having quality content. Google values the content because they see themselves as being on the side of the user, they want the user of Google to have the best time and find the best information. This often means that webmasters get furious with Google about any downgrades or falls in impressions, but you must remember Google is not the provider of a service to a webmaster they are a service for the searcher. This kind of financial transaction is not frowned upon by Google and can be a great way to boost your blog, or product website by having professionally written content. 

Getting Guest Posts - Paid Guest posting



Instead of traditional content marketing Guest Posting paid services now offer you the content and also the placement of the article on a website that will link back to yours. Sounds like even better idea than content marketing right? not only are you getting the content but your getting exposure and a handy back link to boost your Google rank. This may be true in some cases but unfortunately a lot of these paid services are actually placing your content and links onto either useless websites, article farms, spinner websites or no where at all. The reason for this is that real guest posting is a long and laborious task, to find quality websites, write articles for them that they want to use and then having them published can be a process that takes a few weeks, not a couple of hours. So ask yourself why would someone want to do all that work for $20? Perhaps they have a well established network of contacts to have your work published on, or perhaps they have a number of well established blogs of their own that they would place it on. My advice would always be wary of this type of offer. Consider the time it takes and the value it generates, always check where they will publish the guest post prior to payment of any money and make sure that website is something you think is appropriate for your brand. As with the hiring of anyone ensure you have done a sufficient background check before engaging in a financial transaction with them. There is a massive difference in subcontracted work and work done directly by the person you are paying. Sub contracted Content Marketing is huge business, essentially someone sets up a website offering paid writing jobs, offering typically $2 per article and then have a team of people paid $2 per hour to post your articles on websites. So your $20 payment is in fact only 20% to those writers and placer but a massive 80% for the middle man who has a nice website. If you thought it was a lot of work for $20 then it certainly is a lot of work for $2 so you can imagine the output you get.

If you wish to discuss any points feel free to leave a comment, or if you are looking for reputable Content Marketing then leave your details and I'll get back to you.


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