Content Marketing Verifies That Content Still Matters

Do you prefer to pull in client calls and leads, rather than having to go running after them?

Logically every one of us would.

The simplest way to get this done is to get involved with content marketing.

What on earth is content marketing?

It is where you utilize newsletters, blogs, articles (such as this one), podcasts, webinars, etc., to give valuable information and facts to obtain the eye of prospects.

The target is that over a duration of time, you situate yourself as an expert in your industry to thousands of prospective customers.

Content marketing is incredibly valuable, it costs hardly anything and the success can be extraordinary. In addition, the final results get better and better over time, as your target market and influence rises.

When I mention content marketing, I'm continually asked exactly the same questions:

1. How much free advice should I hand out?

2. What knowledge should I offer?

3. Should I just offer a sample of the information or offer a short chapter?

Just how much information should you provide?

There is an easy answer to this. Offer just as much as you are able to because the more you give the more prospects will consider you as a knowledgeable professional.

Over a period of time you will produce masses of good will among your market and an image of expertise. So at the time any of your prospects want the services you offer, they have a resource who they can be positively disposed to and who they have faith in.

Just what material should you provide?

Yet again this has an easy answer. Hand out any information that will be helpful to and of value to your audience. Everyone has got masses of expert info - never keep it to yourself. Rather, share it with others.

Is it best to supply just a sample?

My answer here is definitively no. Go into as much depth as you logically can. Specifically, the information that I share can be executed straight away.

Does this suggest that folks who could have become clients are now able to do their own promotion on the power of the information I provide them with?

I am unable to genuinely reply to that one. On one hand I'd personally love to imagine that the knowledge I share is thorough enough that people use it as a marketing guide to do their unique internet marketing. To tell the truth when they are of that "do it yourself" predisposition they're going to be able to get the material somewhere else on the web.

So if you like the idea of attracting clients as an alternative to being forced to go after them, start spreading your beneficial and info with a measured and constant content marketing methodology.

Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to get your marketing message directly in front of your target audience. This is one online marketing service that every Internet marketing company should offer.

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Content Marketing for Beginners - How to Start Your First Article

Due to the continuous increase in advertising demand online, most companies already have their own websites. That's online presence alright, but is it enough?

There's more to digital marketing than just having a corporate website. Digital marketing is all about connecting and engaging with your target market. Here we will discuss starting content marketing to make your brand relevant.

Knowing what to say and how to say it to your target audience is a very important thing to consider. First step is actually having the right title and the right tagline to catch the attention of your audience. Something that they can relate to, something that they would say themselves, or something that would touch their hearts or make them laugh. Depending on the niche of your product, your articles should bridge the gap between you and your customers. Next is having a good, no, GREAT content. Content that is so engaging and interesting, that the gap between you and your audience will totally diminish, to the point that they will come to you for information, not you to them. This is a great way to compete with the best even if you're just a small company.

When creating content, it is important to go less on the neutral, corporate tone, and use more of the professional, appealing approach instead. Gone are the days when hard selling is used in the internet. It'll actually scare people away from your site. You could have all the necessary information, but if they are not well-crafted, the information you have may just be piled up with the rest of the sub-standard ones. Always be clear, concise, and straight to the point. Avoid using too many words. Also, use words that are simple and easy to understand. Blend in with the tone of your target audience. Are they high school students, young professionals, sporty and athletic men, or house moms? As mentioned earlier, bridge the gap and connect to them. One more important thing is to always consider the technical aspect of the content. Never ever misspell a word. It will ruin your credibility. Use spell checkers. They can save you. Take note on your grammar as well. It is best if you have another person check your content before publishing it, best be sure.

Once you connect to your audience, you gain a follower or a fan. This is a good opportunity to build a strong media presence. You can start making your own Facebook page and Twitter account, so you will have more fans and followers. Share your content to your connections and to your competitors as well. This will further widen your connections. Hook them further by making more relevant and interesting contents.

Now is the time to maintain your fans and followers by engaging with them and providing them with relevant information through content. Having the first few followers is the first hurdle to surpass, and then keeping them with your content is another leap. After these, bright ideas and a smile are all it takes to make your company successful online with digital marketing.

Make Digital Marketing work for you! Get Hooked 360 is a full-service digital marketing agency whose expertise lie in creating digital marketing campaigns that are strategically designed to expose the brand to its target market using the most relevant tools and crafting the most powerful messages to maximise all potentials of digital-word-of-mouth.

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Why 90% of Content Pages Will Never Rank, Page 1 of Google Search

Each, and everyday - millions of "so called" SEO pages (usually articles, or content pages) are generated, all in hopes of landing on the first page, first listing of Google search. It is not unusual for a good content page to hold position 1, and become somewhat fixated, for several days, months, weeks, or even years.

This article is not about those types of pages. It does not concern those pages that use real writers who make use of proper on-page search engine optimization. It does not concern the Authors who write good high quality content, and know how to make researched, well-selected, natural keyword choices.

This article is about those who think they can "game" or "beat" the system. Google knows that for years now, millions and millions of people have resorted to hiring so-called "content writers" from third world countries. (Whose second language is English?)

Or worse yet; when want-to-be writers (whose first language is English) take high quality articles, (often up to 10 of them) and try to dismember them, and rewrite them (word by word, or sentence by sentence, or even paragraph by paragraph) They will often try to avoid plagiarism by borrowing information (a little bit here, a little bit there) to combine it into what they believe is their own "unique" content.

Most will agree the "content is 100%." It is 100% plagiarized, unreadable gibberish, not even worthy of the space it takes up on a hard drive, or folder document. How long will it take the content mongers to understand... if you pay - 2 cents a word - or even 6 cents a word, and fully expect: unique, read-worthy, mind stimulating, top-level content from your "professional" writer, they should not be dismayed when they wind up always "getting" - 2 cents a word copy, or 6 cents a word copy. (This is actually stolen, worthless garbage.)

Take a good look at the pages Google loves to rank on the first page of the (Search engine results pages.) Do you think any of those sold for 2-6 cents a word? You may occasionally find an article that ranks on the first page (even in first place) of the much-coveted Google search, which sold for 10 cents per word, but those are few and far between.

The people who understand that "you get what you pay for" do not mind paying 10, 20, or even $1.00 per word. (In some high competition areas) These same people have sometimes paid upwards of $85 to $500.00 per single word (or keyword phrase) for their Google Ad-words campaigns, so for them to pay a good writer 60 cents to $1.50 per word is no problem to them. They actually make money from the copy, because you do get what you pay for.

If an article does not contain unique, well thought out content, which actually adds to the knowledge and understanding of the main topic it covers; it is eventually going to find its way to the back of the line.

Is it possible for me to underscore the keyword "relevance" enough? When you buy cheap, rehashed, and most often plagiarized content, which contains absolutely zero value to the reader, then you should expect it to "rank" in the "lost in cyberspace" zone. Now, go and lick your wounds, before they get infected.

Stephen Monday is a professional Web copywriter, Content Specialist, Web Copy Specialist, whose copy writing site can be found: http://www.AAAWebcopyservices.com

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7 Tips For Re-Purposing Blog Content Into Online Article Submissions

If you have a blog, it's pretty easy to start marketing with articles because you can bounce the articles off of the content from your blog. In that way, you're sort of killing two birds with one stone, and it's an excellent way to get the most use possible out of the content you create.

Here are 7 tips for turning blog content into article submissions:

1- What kinds of content from your blog can you turn into articles?

Any content that teaches the reader how to do something and that is not sales oriented.

Free reprint articles are also sometimes called "educational articles". Their purpose is to educate the reader on a topic having to do with your niche. You, as the expert, are in the position of "teacher" in all your articles. You can include sales oriented material in your resource box (rather than the article), which usually sits below your article on the published page.

2 - Focus on writing blog posts that contain educational information about how to do something practical in your niche.

People who are reading your articles will be looking for solutions to problems. Think about the types of questions your target readers have and write articles that provide the answers. Also, think about the types of things that your target readers need to know how to do, and then teach them how to do those things through your articles.

3 - When re-writing a blog post to be submitted as a free reprint article, the content needs to be written in a more formal manner.

Many times the writing on a blog can be quite informal, because you're the editor and you can publish anything you like. When you're submitting free reprint articles though, the article needs to pass editorial approval first, and most editors will appreciate a professional sounding article.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the people reading your blog may already know you --they know your sense of humor and the way you think, but the people who are reading your articles will probably be "meeting" you for the first time. For that reason, it's a good idea to put your most professional foot forward.

4 - Articles should be free of spelling and grammar errors.

If you make a mistake on your blog, you can easily just edit the post. It's not a big deal. But when you submit an article, it will be published on many different websites, and you won't necessarily have access to edit the content should you spot an error after the fact.

The readers of your blog will often be completely new to your work, so they won't know that you usually write well and that the mistakes they're seeing in your article are uncharacteristic. You only get one shot to make a first impression. Keep in mind that the article you're writing may be the only article of yours that some people see.

Finally, submitting an article isn't the end of the line--a publisher has to agree to publish the article before it can do your marketing efforts any good. Publishers will routinely decline articles that are poorly written, so it's worth it to spend extra time proofreading your article.

5 - Don't link to other sites in the article body, unless necessary.

On your blog, you can link all you want, but most publishers have rules concerning the links that are in articles. Firstly, most don't want you to link to your own website from the article body. (You can, however, link to your own website from your resource box.) Some publishers also don't want you have any links in the upper half of your article. Some publishers restrict the number of links they allow in the article too.

A good practice to make your articles as attractive to as many publishers as possible is simply not to include links in the article body, unless you can't avoid it. Try to write content that is not depended on outside sources.

6 - Pick topics that will stand the test of time.

Free reprint articles will potentially be published on websites around the internet "forever", so choose content that is evergreen and won't become obsolete.

7 - Totally re-write the blog post before submitting it as an article.

The reason you do this is to ensure that the content on your own web pages remains unique. Content that can't be found anywhere else is more highly valued by search engines, so re-writing your blog content before submitting it as an article is an SEO strategy.

You can look at the main points of your post as being the starting point of your article, but the article itself should stand as a totally unique piece of content.

Steve Shaw is an article marketing expert, and founder of the popular blog Creative Article Marketing, which teaches people how to submit articles. Discover how to use the power of article marketing to reach tens of thousands of potential prospects for your website - download a powerful free report on successful article marketing from http://www.submityourarticle.com/report

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Profitable Content Marketing - 3 Content Title Mistakes and What to Do Instead (Prospects, Profits)

Crafting profitable content titles will bring you more prospects and profits.

And you do want more prospects and profits, right?

The challenge is there are so many mistakes you can make when you are creating titles for your content. So in this article I'll show you 3 of the many mistakes and what to do instead. Ready?

3 Mistakes and What to Do Instead

Title Mistake #1 - Failure to brainstorm your title - 99 percent of people create one title and go with it. So what's so wrong with that - why is it a mistake?

Well, since your title is the most important part of your content, you want to spend a great deal of time on it. If your title stinks, very few people will read your content. If your title is compelling and well thought out, you will dramatically increase the number of prospects who read your content.

What to do instead - Experiment with dozens of titles. Play with the benefits you offer. Narrow your titles down to the top 3 and run them by a few people. See which ones they like the best.

Title Mistake #2 - Failure to front load your title with keywords - When you fail to include keywords in the first four words of your title, Google will not find your content. So a title that starts with "How to Deliver the... " is a lousy title.

What to do instead - Include keywords in the first four words of you title. It's quite easy to do. For example, check out the title of this article you are reading. "Profitable Content Marketing" includes the keyword phrase "Content Marketing" while still being attractive to your prospect.

Mistake #3 - Failure to include benefits in your title - You must remember that your prospect is a busy person who has lots of options for how they spend their time. When you fail to include in your title any of the benefits of reading your content, most prospects will bypass your content.

What to do instead - Include compelling benefits that will make your prospect want to stop want they are doing to consume your content. Again, let's use the title of this article as an example. "Profitable Content Marketing - 3 Content Title Mistakes and What to Do Instead (Prospects & Profits)" tells the prospect that not only will 3 mistakes be revealed, you'll also find out what to do instead.

That will make prospects want to consume your content right away.

Bonus Tip - Want to learn more about creating powerful and profitable titles for your content? Then you'll want to catch this webinar - "Content Title Terror - The 3 Biggest Content Title Mistakes and What to Do Instead (Follow the Formula)"

If you don't catch the Live Webinar, you'll be able to catch the Webinar Rebroadcast at a time convenient for you when you visit http://JeffHerring.com/title-terror

In this content rich, how-to webinar, I reveal my time tested formula for crafting powerful and profitable titles for your content.

Brought to you by Jeff Herring - The King of Content Marketing

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Profitable Content Marketing - My Simple 3 Step Formula for Prospect Pulling Content Titles (Strong)

Content Marketing is a great way to build a strong presence online, drive traffic and build your list community. It's also one of the easiest and most repeatable ways to build your online business.

And you do want to build a strong presence online, drive traffic and build your list community for your online business, right?

It all starts with titles

Your content starts with titles. If your title captures the attention of your prospect, you have a great chance of turning a prospect into a customer. If your title does not capture the attention of your prospect, then you have little chance of getting a busy entrepreneur to stop what they are doing and consume your content. Prospect lost.

Since I see so many entrepreneurs struggle with the title of their content, in this article I'm going to offer you my simple 3 step formula for attention grabbing titles. You no longer have to risk losing potential prospects and profits with poor titles.

Simple 3 Step Formula

Ready for the simple 3 step repeatable formula? OK, then...

Here's the formula: Keywords - Benefits - Keywords

Let's use the title of this article as an example of how to unpack this simple 3 step title formula.

""

Keywords - You want to "front load" your title with keywords.

"What the heck does that mean, Jeff?" OK, I'll say that a little bit differently.

In other words, you want to have keywords in the first four words of your title. This is because when someone searches for your keywords online, Google sends out their pesky little search spiders to crawl billions of web pages, if the spiders do not find keywords in the first four words of your title, you content will not be delivered to prospects searching for your information.

And that is not the outcome you want for your content.

Never waste the first four words of your title. In our example, "Profitable Content Marketing" gives you strong keywords in the first four words.

Benefits - You must give your prospect a good strong reason for stopping what they are doing to read your content. This is done by listing the clear and powerful benefits in your title.

From our example - "My Simple 3 Step Formula for Prospect Pulling Content Titles" - gives the prospect lots of benefits. You'll get 3 simple steps, and a formula, for prospect pulling titles.

Any one interested in this subject is going to feel compelled to read this content.

Keywords - You'll get more views of your content when you can include keywords again toward the end of your title.

Again using our example - "Prospect Pulling Content Titles (Strong)" - contains the keywords "Content Titles." These are strong keywords that will help the search engines find you.

One of the things I want you to notice about the title of this article is that while it does clearly follow my "Keywords-Benefits-Keywords" Formula, it's very readable and easy on the eye of your prospect.

Bonus Tip - You can discover even more about how to create prospect and profit pulling content titles in my "Results Now" Webinar called "Content Title Terror - The 3 Biggest & Scariest Content Title Mistakes and What to Do Instead (Follow the Formula)" when you visit http://JeffHerring.com/title-terror

Even if you do not catch it live, you'll be able to catch one of the Webinar Rebroadcasts, and even get your questions answered on the webinar.

This is another in a series of my famous "Results Now" Webinars, where you will actually accomplish something to move your business forward right on the webinar.

Brought to you by Jeff Herring - The King of Content Marketing and creator of the 6 Figure Content Secrets System

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Profitable Content Marketing - Why You Need to Create Your Own Content (PLR Sucks)

Content Marketing is a great way to bring in regular prospects and profits. It has worded great for me and my students for years.

And you do want regular prospects and profits, right?

Creating your own content

You need to be able to create your own content. The biggest reason for this is that your prospects are attracted to your voice.

I'm not talking about the actual audio sound of your voice. Prospects are attracted to your voice - and by "voice" I mean these 2 things:

1) How you approach problems, and

2) How you solve problems.

You've probably never heard of this before, because to my knowledge, I'm the only one that teaches content creation this way.

When you create content in this way, people will want to go further with you. By the time they get to the end of your content and reach your call to action, they are thinking "how can I get more from this person?" And there is your call to action waiting for them.

But what about PLR?

"But Jeff, what about PLR? Why do you think it is so bad and must be avoided?"

OK, let's make sure we are on the same page here. PLR stands for Private Label Rights. What this means is that someone else has created the content for you and you are paying for the right to use it and claim it as your own.

PLR has become fairly popular online, especially as a "solution" for those who believe they cannot create their own content.

So let me share with you a few reasons why I believe PLR sucks:

1) Someone who is writing content for everyone to use is not writing in your voice. They are not approaching problems and solving problems the way you do, in your voice.

2) The name of Private Label Rights is very misleading, as it is not really "private." Any one who pays for it can use it. That means content you are promoting as yours can also claim and promote it as theirs.

3) Let me bring this home to you with an example. Imagine you think you have a private relationship with your spouse. You naturally believe you are the only one married to and with this person.

Then one day you go to a restaurant and see your partner with someone else, another partner. Once you get over the shock, what are you going to be thinking about your partner?

Exactly. Which is why you don't want your prospect finding "your content" claimed by someone else too.

My Challenge to You

Are one of the folks who believe you can't create your own content? Then you're invited to catch my webinar called "How to Create Profitable Content in 20 Minutes or Less" when you visit http://JeffHerring.com/create-profitable-content

This is one of my famous Results Now Webinars, where I will take you step-by-step through the process of creating your own content is less than 20 minutes. If you don't catch the webinar live you can catch the Webinar Rebroadcast and get the same results.

Brought to you by Jeff Herring - The King of Content Marketing

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Profitable Content Creation - What Happened After They Told Me I Couldn't Write (True Story)

Content Marketing is a great way to build your online business. The problem is that most people who teach it stop at the point of creating content. While creating profitable content is essential, there is so much more you can do with your content. That's why I expand Content Marketing into the 5 things you need to be successful online in any niche: content creation, online visibility, traffic generation, list building and product creation.

A funny thing happened along the way

As some of you know, I never finished my Ph.D. in Marriage & Family Therapy back in the late 80's/early 90's. Have you ever been told you could not do something? If you're anything like me, that just makes me want to do it all the more, if for no other reason than to prove them wrong.

Except this time when some of my dissertation committee told me I couldn't write well at all, somehow that got in, and I took them at their word.

So if you believe you can't write, you don't finish your dissertation and you don't get your Ph.D.

So then in 1994 I started writing a weekly column about relationships for the local paper that filled my private practice to overflowing. I must confess that I did get a kick out of having a full practice while others with a Ph.D. were struggling.

Not too long ago someone from the dissertation committee signed up for one of my Content Creation Workshops. That's a day we still celebrate.

As author Richard Bach says "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours." I like to say, and sometimes accidentally change Bach's quote into "argue for your limitations and you get to keep them." Same message that is worth taking with you.

Bottom Line: Be careful, be very careful, about the limitations others, and especially you, try to put on you... and which ones you believe.

So what's to be learned from all this?

Here are a few learning points about writing and creating content:

1) As stated above, don't accept, ever, the limitations others put on you. In fact don't accept the limitations you put on yourself. They are often times just beliefs - a feeling of certainty about something. It can be quite fun to challenge those limitations and prove them wrong.

2) I probably still couldn't write academically if you held a gun to my head. And, fortunately, I don't want or need to do so. The great news is I don't have to and neither do you. All you need to do is write conversationally. In other words, simply write like you talk.

3) Number 2 works because prospects are attracted to your voice. Not the audio sound of your voice, but the way you approach and solve problems. That is your voice, and no one else can deliver it like you.

4) If you can write a 5 item grocery list, you can create profitable content based on your own expertise. You can then turn that content into a powerful presence on the web and be found all over your niche, lots of traffic visiting your profit sites, build a highly qualified and responsive list community, and create profits by creating, marketing and offering information products based on your content.

The truth is I've been creating content to building my businesses, both offline (a thriving therapy practice from 1986 - 2006) and online (helping entrepreneurs build their online business with Content Marketing 2006 - NOW), since 1994.

And I want to bring those 18 years experience creating profitable content to you with this Webinar...

"How to Create Profitable Content in 20 Minutes or Less"

Register here

The Nobility Behind Creating Content Online

Yes you did hear me right, creating content can be viewed as a very noble act if you consider the effort that goes into it! Although the vast majority who surf the internet searching for information never consider even just the research needed to compose something, the content creator remains unfazed! Now that's noble!

Let's examine the efforts invested and benefits offered by the typical content creator found online to see why their efforts should be applauded and not ignored!

Sharing Knowledge

Each one of us has taken different 'paths' in life that have resulted in developing certain personal skills, experiences or knowledge! This knowledge and/or experience has been acquired by dedicating a certain amount of time and effort out of your own busy life! To combine this with any additional research needed when developing it into something readers will enjoy or benefit from can be considered an act of generosity!

Sharing Effort

Quite often there will be extensive research needed by the content creator if they are unable to 'pull' from their own experiences! No matter how you look at it this research takes time and discipline and quite frankly not everybody is willing to make such an investment! Consider your own educational background where in the vast majority of cases, what you learned was put together by someone else! There are things we all tend to take for granted but the fact remains we benefited from the efforts of others and this is the case with all the information we are able to view online!

Sharing Perspectives

Our individual insights and/or perspectives are original since it reflects not only our personal experiences but our unique mindset as well! Quite often people searching for information have an interest NOT only in the facts and figures but also in how others may view the same subject matter! Although to some it may seem that sharing your opinions or perspectives is easy to do here again it takes some effort along with a little skill putting these perspectives into words! Along with that the content creator must also focus on delivering their message in a way that everybody can understand!

Although creating content online is often done to build exposure and trust for a person or business it is rarely recognized to be an act of nobility! The fact is that the content creator does invest much time and effort into the research needed to produce something that offers value to readers! Let's not forget that people searching for information are ALWAYS the beneficiaries of another persons efforts! When you consider what a content creator invests into their 'work' and how it benefits readers it is hoped your appreciation will only grow!

TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina.
To learn more about creating content that benefits others and to also receive a free instructional manual that teaches valuable niche research techniques for your online marketing needs simply visit: http://blogbrawn.com/

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Content Farms: Outdated or Still Relevant?

It is only a few months ago but, for some, it seems almost as if it were yesterday: the largest Internet ranking company Google announced that it would be penalizing web sites which fail to show originality, which are designed only to publish and publicize articles on whatever subject with the intention of gaining advertising revenue. Here the term Content Farm came into wider use; a web site consisting almost exclusively of articles, reviews and reports written by external authors and, often but not always, published on many different sites at the same time. The penalty for sites determined to be lacking in originality, guilty of publishing and republishing the same articles time and time again, would be a loss of page ranking through a lower availability in search results. Originality and a certain level of exclusivity for articles is what Google had in mind; an attempt to stop the stocking of the higher search result pages with exactly the same article on a wide variety of different sites. For Google variety is the spice of life, and the search result pages should show a wealth of different articles, web sites and pages around a chosen theme rather than exactly the same, word for word, result each time.

The immediate worry amongst many proprietors of so-called Content Farms was a loss of revenue. A web site which earns its keep through advertising cannot survive without a high number of visitors, without those advertisements being seen and, with some advertising contracts, clicked through. Secondary to this the worry amongst writers of such articles that their chosen platform would no longer host their articles and that the links - either within a signature block direct to the writer or within the text to paying or sponsoring customers - would, in a knock-on effect, be penalized too. What is bad for a Content Farm is also bad for the writers who supply them with material, many of whom are not paid for their services but gain through back links and through readers clicking onto their own sites to read more.

The intention behind this change of ranking is clear. With so many web sites publishing articles the market place could become satiated and the quality of the content drop. The constant repetition of articles, copied from one web site to another or uploaded by the individual writers to a multitude of sites, does nothing to advance the level of knowledge nor to promote a specific writer. The originality of a work is lost, they argued, when exactly the same article appears on five or ten different sites, no matter how good the original article may be.

There are several different levels of Content Farms. The highest ranking ones, those which publish an article first, have a good layout and higher editorial standards, remain at the top of the list. The next level is those which either have no editorial controls or which publish as soon as an article is submitted. The lowest level is those sites which have little or no original content submitted, but which take articles from other sites and, with the appropriate links, republish them on their own. Over the last few years many sites which fulfill the third criteria have sprung up, using open source and free software, to take advantage of lax ranking rules and an ease of gaining advertising. Taking an article from another site - which is allowed in many of the Content Farm sites with few restrictions - is free of all costs: editing is not required; formatting is already in place. It was seen as a quick and easy way to make money using a tried and trusted format.

The battle for a high ranking in search engine results is not something any company can take lightly: if a person is looking for specific information on a research subject, or even a favorite brand of shoes, the first to appear on Google's pages, or those of any other search engine, are those which will gain the visitors and, as a result, the custom. A lower ranking will result in fewer visitors, higher costs and less sales, less revenue. The abundance of lower quality Content Farms not only damaged the search engine results with mass repetition, but also the reputations of the better Content Farms who would be automatically lumped in with those consisting of quantity rather than quality. The abundance of lower quality sites has also lessened the overall quality of the Internet as a source of information and opinion. Where no editorial control is in place anything with the right number of words could be published, using the appropriate keywords and phrases but giving the visitor no useful information. Spelling and grammar in lower quality Content Farms would not be checked, facts and figures simply republished as they stood with no checks for accuracy. The lower level, and many of the middle level Content Farms had become simply a means of gaining advertising revenue - for the sites themselves - and a mass of back links for writers and content producers linking back to their own sites and personal homepages in the hope of achieving a higher personal page rank.

The changes to the Google algorithm for assessing the worth of a Content Farm should have resulted in many sites simply disappearing from the top search result pages. It is to be hoped that these sites consist exclusively of the lower quality re-publishers, along with some of the middle level publishers. The change, however, has a small factor which must also be weighed in: many sites using the Content Farm format also have Google Ads as their main sponsor. A change to their placing in search results would not only lower their potential income, but also that of Google itself. Fewer visitors to a site, fewer clicks on the advertising or views, and Google would find itself with fewer advertisers or fewer potential sites where their advertising could be placed.

For the proprietors of the high quality sites - where editorial control, quality content, spelling and grammar as well as originality remain of prime importance - the changes forced through by Google proved a test of their resilience. It became necessary to ensure originality, to harvest a base of high quality writers with real knowledge and stable opinions. It became a competition to see who would survive, and which sites could prove to the automated Google checks that their content met all the criteria, that they were not simply re-publishing content from elsewhere. Those sites with a vested interest in their writers adapted immediately. Quality and originality became of primary importance and a series of incentives were offered: an upgrading of status according to the number of quality articles approved; awards for quality as much as for quantity; better marketing and a higher hit ratio, article to writer's site. Some sites also altered their format, their visual appearance both for visitors and for search engine spiders - the software which crawls the Internet checking out content and then submitting it for inclusion in the search engine database.

In short, the major players amongst the Content Farms adapted and brought their own systems up to date, improving their presence and their relevance. For those who had merely downloaded an articles base type software, but without the background knowledge on how to adapt and change, without the necessary programming knowledge, time stood still. The sites based on quantity and re-publishing from other sites lost ground in the search results, and in the page ranking. Those unable to adapt, to prove their worth and relevance in the marketplace vanished from view or were relegated to the lower search engine results pages. With time the marketplace for articles will shrink further and far higher standards will be demanded, as a direct result of the Google change, and this is a good thing. Content Farms remain relevant for research, for the promulgation of information and knowledge so long as the quality remains high and so long as their content remains original, representative and informative.

Viktoria Michaelis is an American student (born July 1992) currently resident in Germany studying Business Studies and Economics at Bremen University. She has had fictional works published in several anthologies and regularly writes in her personal Blog Viktoria Michaelis: Secrets & Desires on a wide range of subjects from Beauty and Health through to Women's Issues and Adult subjects.

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