Article Marketing - To Rewrite, or Not to Rewrite?

Hey Scarlett,

Amazingly I have the same question as you and was trawling through the posts looking for an answer. I have several Bum Marketing books and they really don't go into this - very frustrating! If there is no response here I'll email one of the authors and let you know what they say.

Cheers
Stef

I'm far from an article expert, so take my input for what it's worth. I prefer to rewrite my content, but I don't know that it's strictly necessary. I never wait for EZA. My understanding is that by "original", they mean not a copy of someone elses article or PLR, not unpuplished. I always post to my websites first.

Best Regards,
Kevin

i also use a rewriting program and just like you i can only get around 35% uniqueness from the original article and i too was wondering if i submit to eza first since they usually rank high but i hate having to wait a week then submitting the rest to article directories because i wouldve forgotten about it or id be working on another one

so any insight on this would be great

You don't have to wait till EZA approves an article before you publish it elsewhere. They don't require unique content or first publishing rights.

All they require is that YOU wrote it and/or own the copyrights to it. In other words it cannot be stolen, scraped, or PLR type content.

I personally prefer writing more articles instead of rewriting. Rewriting feels redundant, it's time consuming, and too often I draw blanks as to how to reword something more than one or two ways. I do change up the article titles though.

Hope that helps,
Kathy

i prefer writing on own instead of rewriting. i got bitter experiences with rewriting.

Thanks for all the responses! So, if I understand this right, I can submit the same article to several of the top ranking article sites? I was under the impression that I would have to rewrite it for each site.

Thanks
Stef

For SEO it does not matter if you have duplicate content. For your visitor, it does matter if you have duplicate content

Here's my summarized take...

As far as EZA and your content, if its yours they'll accept it - whether it is published elsewhere already or not. They would have you believ you have to submit it to them first, but you don't have to.

Submit it to your website first. Period. You HAVE to let the SE's know that it is your content, and posting it on your website first is one of the steps to letting them know.

As far as rewriting goes...if I am going to rewrite one of my articles and take that extra 30 minutes, I am simply going to use it as a brand new article and submit it as if it were completely original.

None of us know what the SE's are going to rank highly. Rewrite an article and there's just as good of a chance that the rewritten one will rank highly.

In this case, you have two articles, double the real estate and a much better chance to get a higher search engine ranking as well as a much higher chance to get direct traffic from your article.

NOW, don't get crazy and start submitting duplicated content to article directories. By duplicated content, I mean the same ideas written with synonyms and paragraphs moved around. That is a quick way to get banned from an article directory.

You want them to be able to be read by one person and considered to be two different articles. We know that articles will be somewhat the same, just by chance. So make them different enough and you'll be al set.

Respectfully,
Allen Graves

Hey Allen,

I always post the article to my website but have been doing it only after EZA approved it. Thanks for opening my eyes! I will start posting to my sites first from now on.

Cheers
Stef

You don't use an article creation tool or spinner to create just one article. You work it to a degree where you'll be able to get a decent amount of unique articles from it. If you are just wanting one new version then you're better just writing it yourself.

Using a rewritting tool such as the one you're using, you just need to ensure that you change all sections, throughout your article, and ALSO insert at least 3 variations for each one.

I'd suggest you submit to ezinearticles, then wrangle it, then submit to goarticles, wrangle again, and so on till you've done the 50 or so main sites.

Google is looking for unique content, not really even well written content. So, if you make if 100% your thoughts, that is the best thing to do. If you use a software program, you better make sure that it's at least 75% different than the original or Google and other search engines won't rank your article where you want it, in the number one spot!

When I submit articles to EZA or any other article directory, my goal is to get published - by as many sites as I possibly can.

Sure getting traffic and SE juice from an article directory is great, but it's limited and short sighted. If hundreds - thousands - or even tens of thousands eventually publish my article, that's so much more traffic potential, direct links, and potential SE juice.

Since that is my goal, I see no point in rewriting the same articles. The article that's at EZA will be picked up by uncounted numbers of other sites, as will the one at GoArticles, and the one at IdeaMarketers, etc etc. And even those articles that were picked up by publishers may be "picked up" in a sense by scrapers, smaller search engines and directories, etc. And in my opinion, this scenario is exactly why rewriting is pointless. There's no way to control how many sites pick up a given article once it has been distributed.

I personally feel that taking the time and effort to write new content and/or rewrite existing content should be done for your own sites. If you do well in the collectibles niche for example, then create 10 or 20 more sites in that exact same niche, spin or rewrite your content, and use those on your new sites so you can dominate that niche.

This is a bit long so I apologize in advance

Here is the strategy I have employed for quite some time and now and I have found that it works extremely well for me in terms of generating visitors and income for my websites.

First, I never like to post the same article on my website that I submit to Ezinearticles.com so at a minimum I will always have 2 articles that cover the same keyword phrase (one fo rmy website and one I submit to ezinearticles.com).

The reason I do this has nothing to do with a duplicate content penalty. Instead, it is based around the reading tendencies of visitors that search the Internet. If someone reads my article at Ezinearticles.com and they like it enough to read my resource box and ultimately click on a link to my website the last thing I want them seeing is the exact same article that brough them to my website in the first place.

I would much rather have a different version of an article on my website that is just as engaging as the article that brought them to my website from Ezinearticles.com only this time I have affiliate links sprinkled throughout the article or an adsense ad or some affiliate banners. These serve as attention grabbers (which is what I want) enticing the reader to click on one of them and hopefully making money for myself and the advertiser (important for several reasons).

Ok, so right now I have at least 2 versions of the article and these versions are written without using any rewriting software. Next, I start to employ my spin cycle and in this case I do advocate using something along the lines of Power Article Rewriter. These are the articles that I construct for submission to other directories, social websites, blogs, as an answer to a question on Yahoo Answers or perhaps as a posting in a forum...etc

Again, this is just a personal preference because for an extra 30 minutes of work I can have enough versions of my article to cover everywhere I plan to submit these articles. For example: 10 other directories, 5 blogs and 10 social websites.

In most cases these are the articles I use as backlink builders for the articles I do want to have ranked highly in the search engines whether it is on my website or the article I submit to Ezinearticles.com

Another reason I like to do rewrites is because it allows for total keyword phrase domination in the search engines. If I can get ranked in the top spot for a keyword phrase then why not take the extra steps required to control the top 5 rankings or top seven, in some cases even the top 10 rankings.

This almost assures you that no matter what link is clicked on by the visitor for the keyword phrase you have targeted when they do their organic search it always leads to an article of yours which then leads back to your website.

This is my version of Monsters Inc. If you have seen the movie, then you already know that the monsters have doors that lead into our world which they use to travel back and forth. The individual doors they use to leave their world always go somewhere different but when leaving our world every door they can find always leads back to their world.

The articles I submit are what I view as the doors leading back to my site. Yes, there is the obstacle of making it through the advertising that the article directories put up but if you can navigate your reader through that minor obstacle once they arrive at your website you have all but assured yourself of some profit generation.

That process is the true beauty of article writing. You have to view each article as more then just words. In fact, I have gone so far as to look at each article as my own little worker assigned to do a specific job for my websites. I consider the articles I submit as my downline.....some will do their job effectively and others simply won't. In many cases I don't dwell on the articles that don't work....instead I focus my attention on the articles that do work and then replicate them.

One other side note, you can have the same article on Ezinearticles.com that you submit everywhere else and also have on your website but by not allowing them to approve it first before using it elsewhere (to include your own website) you run the risk of their editors flagging your article as not being your own property. this issue is easily resolved but it relies on you emaling them and explaining (proving) that you are in fact the original author..............in my experience this has always taken longer than the 30 minutes required to simply rewrite the article for inclusion elsewhere.

Respectfully,
Tim

Ohhhh - I thought you meant the adsense ads on the article directory page.

Makes sense!

AL

Thank you so much to Tim, Allen, and everyone for your insights!

So if I understand correctly, rewriting articles is NOT necessary, but it might be preferable in order to gain extra backlinks? And ideally the original article on your website should not be identical to the one submitted to the article directories, so if you're only going to do one rewrite, that's the time to do it?

Tim, I like what you said about keyword domination, but does that mean that if you have a list of 10 keyword phrases, it makes more sense to rewrite the first article 10x for each long-tail keyword, vs writing completely new articles? Now THAT would save a ton of time! My M.O. thus far has been to make a list of keywords, write one article per keyword, then rewrite it up to 35% uniquneness using synonyms, restructured sentences, etc because I thought it was beneficial for SERPs in some way ... So is that not a good use of my time?

There are so many differing opinions, but I really appreciate everyone's thoughts!

What I usually do is rewrite each sentence, then I rewrite some phrases in the sentences, and then I go on to finding synonyms for single words that will still make sense with the sentence.

If you're going to spin one article into 100 articles you should definitely take the time to rewrite every single little bit. It'd take an extremely long time if you were to rewrite the same article 100 times without an article spinner, so take your time.

Thank you for your insights, Tim! Just now, I wrote an article and submitted it to 12 directories without changing anything. Wow, did that save a ton of time! :-) Now I'm going to rewrite it a bit and post it to my website. (Although next time I'll probably do that first.) Sounds like a great plan of action, thanks again!

Oh and I have Angela's backlinks packets as well ... They are awesome!

Scarlett

I'd prefer to submit my original article than having to spend more time rewriting, afterall if it's my own article it should be unique because every individual has unique or different views in life.

I like article marketing mostly because I like to write articles. I can't say that I've ever gotten into the "detail" side of it, usually just write an article for my site and if I think it's something that stands out, I'll submit it. Haven't made it much of a priority which is probably a shame.

This thread has really given me some great knowledge and insights. Thank you all! I've always been serious about what I do but on a different level. Can definitely see that I can take it much further than I have.

Deanna

I realize that this is a very personal quirk of mine and maybe I'm taking this thread down the wrong track -- if so, I'm sorry about that, but for me, it's not as much rewriting as it is writing well in the first place.

When I'm searching for information and click on a link, so often I'll read the article (or other content), it's like being offered a steak but when I bite into it, I find that it's cardboard. Finding that, I will never click on a link or purchase that person's product. I have so little time that I hate having someone waste it...I feel like they've cheated me.

Often people forget what I believe is the most important element in article writing: genuine useful content. I'm an absolute believer in re-writes. But start out with a steak...shoot, start out with a whole darn cow and go from there.

I recently rejected a whole bunch of articles from someone and, being the blunt person I am, told him that they were garbage. I couldn't believe it when he actually said that the rest of his clients "settle for it".

I'm tired of people "settling". Warriors, why do we have to "settle" for things? Why can't we take pride in our work, in ourselves and in our lives? When you think of the "great" people in any arena, they are the ones who refused to "settle". They went the extra mile, lost sleep, risked everything in order to achieve greatness. This is called the "warrior forum" not the "wimp forum".

I believe that what Tim and Allen and others like them here say rings so true because deep down inside we admire those who strive, who choose "greatness".

So maybe I'm ranting but I believe that as marketing warriors, it's time to step up, put on our armor and strive for greatness.



Chaz...climbing off her soapbox now...

You can post the first hand written article on your website first then get it indexed and wait a day or two then submit some rewrites to article directories. Even If google by any mean realizes any link between all the articles then your website still the first hand on the content.

However, I would recommend focusing on getting the best to article directories then link to your sales/presell page from there. Since the article directory may have better chances ranking up than your website.

Just a strategy that works^^^

Definately Re-write!

Doesn't matter if you use software or do it manually, you really want to take advantage of what you have and leverage that into more.

Ideally, it's highly desireable to start off with some great piece of content, beautifully and professionally crafted before creating more variations of it.

Also, I don't wait for any approval on article directory sites before distributing to others. No one is a single authority in this game for traffic, use them all.

BTW, I find that I get BETTER results by creating these variations rather than just posting the same old thing everywhere. It's great for SERPS and traffic generation 100%.

Good luck.

Adeel

Always rewrite your orignal articles. You wouldn't use something like Power Article Writer to rewrite just one article. You'd use it to rewrite a decent volume of articles.

If you just want to rewrite an article once, then do it manually or feel free to use my free tool. It's in my signature.

If you had hundreds of the exact article across the net, 99% of them would end up in the supplemental index, buried deep.