Is Article Writing Pointless: Are Article Marketing Services Dead? - By: Pete Nisbet

Shock! Gasp! Horror! Article writing is now pointless and article marketing services are dead! So thought many people when the much-misunderstood algorithm update known commonly as 'Farmer' was introduced to the internet marketing world by Google. The panic was palpable, and you could almost smell the fear in many of the hysterical blog posts and articles written on this dreadful thing that Google had just done to us.

Google Protects its Customers

All nonsense, of course, because Google generally does not harm those responsible for its existence, even if only marginally responsible, but it does protect those people it regards as its customers. These are the people that use Google as a search engine to find information - not those that use the search engine to advertise!

If you are offering good information on your web pages, or using article directories, then article writing will be alive and well and article marketing services will continue to enable you to promote your information sites. Naturally, your websites will have to offer useful information, although dedicated sales sites are still regarded as providing Google customers with a service. So what was the purpose of this algorithm update that Google introduced in February?

The Panda-Farmer Algorithm Update

Even though the dust has settled, and everybody has had their two cents worth of comments and explanations, there is still a great deal of misunderstanding. Even my explanation here might not satisfy everybody, and some may disagree with me. It is their right to do so, but as an article ghostwriter of good standing and many years experience I guess my opinion is just as worth expressing as that of anybody else out there.

Article writing was not Google's target, and neither were the article marketing services that still enable you to use articles to promote your websites and your products. Google's target was the plethora of badly written information, in short:

• Articles spun from a master article
• Bad rewrites of PLR articles
• Poor article writing offering little benefit to the reader
• Articles offering little information, designed only to get clicks
• Very short articles of 250 - under 400 words
• Article with significant spelling errors
• Article written with very poor grammar
• Software-generated articles taken from scraped web content

In short, Google is attempting to improve the quality of content being provided to its customers who are seeking useful information. This was not only content in the form of articles, but also regular web page content. Google does not want to see the same type of content on large numbers of results pages, even if it may be presented in slightly different ways. They don't want to find text that is almost unreadable because it has been so badly written.

For those confused by the name of the algorithm update, Google named it 'Panda' after the Indian technician who developed it. It was given the popular name 'Farmer' by those who believed its purpose to be to target so-called 'content farms'. That was not strictly the case, although content farms rightly suffered, largely due to the low-quality content many such sites offered.

The Future of Article Marketing Services

Article marketing services are going strong, and you can still promote your web pages by publishing well-written articles of reasonable length that provide useful content that is related to the title. Also make sure that the article resource leads readers to a page on your website that is directly related to the subject of the article - this is another aspect of article writing that many appear not to have grasped.

Another factor in a well written article is that it should not be stuffed with keywords. Even 1% keyword density is approaching spamming these days. Since the introduction of Google's LSI algorithm update, it has not been necessary to stuff keywords into your article marketing campaigns. Writing naturally is the key to high listings for a good, informative article.

Response of Article Directories

The reaction of article directories was to tighten up on their editorial guidelines. Many, including Ezine Articles, increased their minimum word count to 400, and it is now more difficult to get an article approved by many directories. They are looking more closely at grammar and content.

Because they are finding their articles being refused by the directories, many believe article writing to have lost its benefit as a marketing tool, and that article marketing services are now dead or dying. Nothing could be further from truth. In fact, you will now find it considerably easier to get a high listing for your articles on Google and other search engines because the large majority of articles have been removed as being of insufficient quality.

Article writing is now a more potent marketing tool that ever, and article marketing services are more alive than they ever have been.

About the Author

More information on article writing can be found on on Pete's website Article Services where you will also how to use article marketing services to your best advantage. You will also find more on Google's Panda-Farmer Algorithm and how to use that to your advantage.

Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Pete-Nisbet/37304

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