Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Article Marketing Strategies: Will Directories Decline Articles That Already Appear On My Own Site?

I received this excellent question from a person who had just started article marketing:

"I have heard that if I want my blog posts and free reprint articles to do double duty (using the same or similar content for the blog and the articles), then I should publish the content on my own site first, and then submit the content as free reprint articles. What I'm concerned about is that if I publish on my site first that I will have a hard time getting article directories to accept the content, since it's already on my site. Is that something I should worry about, or am I misunderstanding something?"

I'm glad someone asked this question--I know it can be confusing trying to figure out the best way to combine your online marketing efforts. A blog and article marketing go well together. Here's how to do that:

Write a blog post and publish it on your own website first. Then, totally re-write the content and submit your article. The reason you want to do a total re-write is for SEO reasons for your own website, rather than for the article directories.

You see, you want to keep the content on your own site unique, because in Google's eyes a site that has unique content has more value.

When you submit your totally re-written article as a free reprint article, article directories shouldn't have a problem with that. What they look for is duplicate articles, rather than duplicate content. You may be getting confused about two things that article directories screen for:

1 - They want to see if an article has already been published on their own directory. If it has, then they don't want to publish it again. If they find the article already on their own directory, then the reason for the decline would be that is was a "duplicate article" (not to be confused with "duplicate content").

2 - Directories also want to be sure that you are the copyright owner of the article. So, they may employ a tool that will show them if your article is appearing on another website. If it is, then the directory would need to verify that you own the website or that the content on the website belongs to you.

If you do happen to publish the same content on your site and also submit it as a free reprint article (which, as stated above, is not advisable for SEO reasons), then as long as the content on your site is clearly attributed to you, then there will not usually be any problems with article directories.

Most directories don't mind that the content is on another site because that just goes along with being an article directory. Think about it--the purpose of an article directory is to provide free reprint articles. People go to an article directory, find articles and then republish them on their websites. The directory does not have any expectation that it would be the sole publisher of an article, because that goes against the purpose of an article directory.

I can totally understand how someone could get confused on this--there are terms that sound very similar (duplicate articles and duplicate content), and it's easy to misunderstand the requirements of a directory. If you still have any doubt, then you can check with the article directory in question.

Most directories will not mind that the content you're submitting is also appearing on your website, as long as it's clear that you are the copyright owner. With that said, it's still a good idea (for SEO reasons) to re-write any content from your own site that you wish to submit as a free reprint article.


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Steve Shaw is a content syndication specialist. Do you own a blog? Need content? Join thousands of other blogs and get free high-quality, niche-focused, human-reviewed content from quality authors sent on auto-pilot - and it's all 100% free! Go to http://www.autoblogit.com for more information.


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