For months now I’ve been struggling with the term “duplicate content.” I like to repurpose, or recycle, my content—and like most writers and bloggers, I produce a lot of content. I take my blog posts, for instance, and turn them into ezine articles or press releases. Or I create guest blog posts out of them. In some cases, I actually copy and paste the same blog post from one blog to another blog—my own or one I have on another site. Doing this allows me to have content in many places and to create back links to my own blogs and websites, which drives more traffic to them. Having more content on the Internet also helps me increase my expert status.
Not long ago, though, Google released a new “update,” and began penalizing websites for duplicate content—the same content in more than one place. But what did this mean for me? Did it mean that I had to create all new content in all these cases? Yikes! This brought many of my submissions to a halt. I wondered if this was the case for other writers as well.
Since I advocate repurposing your content, and we’ve just heard about some great ways to market and promote your work using blogs, ezine articles and blog tours—all of which can be done more quickly and effectively when you do, indeed, repurpose some content, I decided to ask the one person I knew could address the issue of duplicate content thoroughly to provide Write Nonfiction in November with a post on the topic. V. Michael Santoro is an award winning author and managing partner for Globe On Demand, LLC, a content marketing firm, and he understands more about these sorts of things than anyone else I know. Thus, I wasn’t surprised to receive a blog post from him that was jam-packed to overflowing not only with the explanation I had asked for but with resources galore to help you repurpose your content to your hearts content and to avoid duplicate content penalties at the same time. The tips and tools he provides in this post will keep you busy repurposing your content for a long, long time! As for me, thanks to Vito, I’m back in business!
Dealing with Google’s Duplicate Content Penalties without Doubling your Workload
By V. Michael Santoro
Google’s Panda update was crushing to sites that contained duplicate content or that were considered “thin” sites. A thin site is one with little, if any, quality unique content or one that contains only duplicate content. For example, many people only use published articles from article directories, such as EzineArticles.com, to build their site. It has become difficult to rank in the search engines with this approach.
Why Duplicate Content is a Problem
Google wants to provide excellent results for people using their search engine. If they return the same content for the top ten or more search returns, they will lose those surfers to competitors. Google penalizes duplicate content with bad rankings and reward quality original content with good rankings. It’s that simple!
What is Quality Content?
Quality content is not determined by how well it is editorially written, but rather Google views how “expertly” it is written. It reviews your web pages and online marketing material and looks for the “theme based” words that are included. For example, if a doctor was to write an article on heart trouble, he/she would include certain terminology, such as cardiovascular and cardiomyopathy. Google compares the content to a database of associate theme keywords and phrases. The more theme words that are contained in well-written content, the higher the quality score and page ranking will be.
NOTE: Your site will be penalized by the search engines if you just list the keywords that you want to rank for instead of using them in naturally written content. This is referred to as keyword stuffing. The keywords need to be used in sentences that read well for the visitor. For example, if you were trying to rank for the keyword phrase, “lower back pain relief,” you would use it in a sentence such as, “For lower back pain relief we recommend the xyz belt.”
Determining Your Content
The free information that you offer on your website and online marketing material needs to be based upon your niche keyword phrases. Additionally, it must provide good information about your topic. Do not recycle general or basic common sense material. Your free content needs to address topics and information not easily found on the web. It needs to brand you as an authority.
For example, which paragraph appears to be written by an expert?
Sentence 1:
If you are experiencing lower back pain, you are not alone. Nearly everyone at some point in their life has back pain that interferes with work, routine daily activities, or recreation.
Sentence 2:
“The spaces between your vertebrae are maintained by round, spongy pads of cartilage called intervertebral discs that allow for flexibility in the lower back and act much like shock absorbers throughout the spinal column to cushion the bones as the body moves.”
Which sentence do you think was written by someone with a good knowledge of the spine? Obviously, Sentence 2 has a better chance of ranking in the search engines even though both sentences read editorially correct.
Duplicate Content Penalties
We cannot emphasize this enough: Using the same content on multiple pages within your website should be avoided. This includes your website’s Meta tags. This can trigger a duplicate content penalty which means your web pages will not rank highly in the search engines. Make sure that you rewrite your content so that it reads differently even though it has a similar meaning.
For example:
For more information about how we can help you, visit our services description page.
Rewrite on another page:
“If you desire more information about how Acme can assist you, please review our services description web page.”
Also, ensure that each page is 800 to 1,200 words in length. Using video to connect with your visitors is also valuable.
As an author, you want to publish your content online using keyword phrases as anchor text (clickable links) back to your website. This material needs to be original. If you distribute the same content one article will rank, for example, and the others may not.
Tips to Lighten Your Content Writing Workload and Maximize Your Return
The following is a technique to maximize the return on your content writing efforts. You can re-purpose your content into various formats and use tools to assist you.
TIP: Name your files using your keyword phrases. Then when uploading the files, ensure that the required Title, Description and Keyword tags incorporate the specific keyword phrase.
You can perform your keyword research using the free Google keyword research tool. Go to:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Now, follow this process to turn one article into an online marketing machine:
Step 1
Write your core article (800 to 1,200 words) using one of your keyword phrases. Then submit it to http://www.ezinearticles.com. Once it’s approved, it will be published with a link back to your website. In the resource box, use the keyword phase as anchor text.
Step 2 – Audio files
Next, download Audacity, the free sound recording software. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
Audacity Tutorial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrPGMjZORCM
Read your article into the Audacity audio recording software and export it as an mp3 file using your keyword phrase as the file name.
Upload it to your website and submit it to one of the podcast directories.
The following link is a list of podcast directories:
http://www.podcast411.com/page2.html
Step 3 – PDF Format
Convert your written article to the PDF format. In MSWord, you can use the “Save As” command and save your file as a PDF document. Once you do, upload the file to http://www.scribd.com/
Step 4 – PPT Submission Sites
Layout your article as a PowerPoint presentation and then upload it to http://www.slideshare.net/
Step 5 – Video Presentations
Jing is a free screen recording program which allows you to make a video with a voiceover. The free version limits you to recording a five minute video and there is an inexpensive paid version that allows you to record longer videos. Download it from the following link: http://www.techsmith.com/jing/
Jing Tutorial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1jw8O0z4S0
Create a PowerPoint slide with a list of talking points about your article and make a Jing recording discussing these points. Upload the video to your YouTube channel.
Microsoft Movie Maker
Make a movie about your topic with Microsoft Movie Maker. Download it here for free:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/movie-maker
Microsoft Movie Maker Tutorial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9C-D30_P8Q
Export your PowerPoint presentation as jpegs and import them into Microsoft Movie Maker. Add a music background. Upload it to your YouTube channel.
NOTE: Since both videos are different, they will be not viewed as duplicate content.
TIP: Use the keyword phrase in the YouTube tags as described above. However, in the keyword tag, put the keyword phrase in quotes, “keyword phrase” – this will help with SEO.
Following this technique provides six links back to your website and generates traffic from the directories as well – all from ONE article.
Step 6 – Guest Blogging
Another way to have original content published is to become a guest blogger. By offering free quality content, you can generate additional back links to your website, while promoting your book.
Type the following into Google “write for us” + KEYWORD and replace the word KEYWORD with your actual keyword phrase or topic. This will return a list of associated blogs looking for your type of content.
Next Steps
You then rewrite your article and “rinse and repeat” the process to other directories.
Automation
If you are serious about this technique, then you may want to consider automating the process of rewriting your articles. The process is called “spinning.” Essentially, you copy your article into a software program which adds code to the content and automatically generates new versions of the article. A simple example of the spin syntax is: The {brown|black|white} {dog|puppy} {walked|ran} down the {road|driveway|street}. The spinning software mixes and matches the words within the brackets to create different versions of the article while retaining the meaning. You create the initial spun version and the software will generate hundreds of unique copies. Check out The Best Spinner demo video here. http://tinyurl.com/Spinner-Example
Instant Article Wizard
This program helps you to research and generate articles in about 15 minutes. Check out the video demo here: http://tinyurl.com/IAW-Video
Once you rewrite or spin your article, repeat the above technique and submit to the following directories:
Article Directories
http://www.vretoolbar.com/articles/directories.php
PDF Directories
PPT Submission Sites
Conclusion
It is becoming increasingly difficult to rank organically in the search engines. Writing quality content based upon targeted keyword phrases and distributing the files across a diversity of online directories will not only help to brand you as an authority, it will also help your website to rank in the search engines.
About the Author
V. Michael Santoro is an award winning author and Managing Partner for Globe On Demand, LLC – a Content Marketing firm.
Don’t miss the final telesminar of this year’s WNFIN event on November 30th, “Content, Character & Connection: Becoming a Successful Writer in a Bottom-Up World,” with Michael Larsen. To be register, click here.
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Thanks for all the great info! I’ve been trying to figure out how to guest blog without duplication issues and this answered my questions.
Rachel
Glad you found it useful. I’ll be posting more info on this topic on my other blog, http://www.writenonfictionnow.com.