Article Writing for a Company

The companies I've done article marketing for in the past have an account set up under a pen name, not a company name. Actually, I'm not sure the big directories even allow you to use a company name as the author.

Go with a Pen Name or get permission to use the real name and picture of a company employee. Get the company name into the resource boxes.

If you are trying to create backlinks for the company make sure you are using keyword rich anchor text for their business and pointing to appropriate pages within their site to match those keywords. Do not just create links using their company name.

Personally, I always recommend they have a blog attached to their site where a copy of every article shows up, too.

Highly recommend to the company to have some of their execs, and other key employees write guest posts for the company blog. (If it is a factory it can be great to even have employees from the shop floor write a guest post talking about quality, processes, or other key items which clients may be interested in.)

Important note for the company. You need to make sure every person who answers the phone "knows" this pen name. They need to be able to tell people who call "Joe Blow" is our corporate writer, I think you probably really want to talk to John in Sales, or Sally in Marketing. It is really a bad sign when someone calls asking for a name and everyone in the company acts ignorant.


ADDED NOTE: A company account might be a good idea (will still be a personal name), after re-reading your question. Then setup pen-names within the company. Example: Joe Blow - XYZ Sales Exec, Jane Smiles - XYZ Customer Relations, etc...

Dragon, would posting the same article on the company blog be considered duplicate content? Can't I get penalized for that? Or as long as I don't link back to the article im ok?

I didn't know if I had a ezine account named

Jenny's Weight Loss Clinic

with articles that had keyword anchored text to the company website, if i would be penalized or something like that.

I think using pen name is better than using company name. In resource box link to the company name and use another name as a pen name.

If i post under a pen name, would posting the same article on the company blog be considered duplicate content? Can I get penalized for that? Or as long as I don't link back to the article im ok?

You won't be penalized for the duplicate content, although for maximum SEO benefit, it's not a bad idea to write a slightly different version for the company blog. If you do post the same article, just make sure to submit to EZA first if you plan to use that directory, as they won't accept content that's been published elsewhere first.

I would say it depends....

If you whish to write about how good the services of the company is, or how their product can save the world, use a pen name.

If you want to build the reputation for your company, proving their skills and knowledge for instance I'd say it would be better to use the name from someone in the company, like the marketing manager, production manager, ceo or someone else to build trust and credability.

you must create a "3rd person" account like "Jxyz" and write articles with keyword anchor text linking to the company.