Setting up your content writers for SEO success or successful theft?
I just read a blog from a well-known-to-us 7 figure earner from WA, well it was sent via his newsletter promoting a guest writer on his site from SEMrush apparently, but when I got to this part I thought wtf, you get people to read my top ranked post and 'organize it better to outrank me' and who are you kidding that you are doing the readers a 'favor'?! I'm supposed to accept that, swallow it, believe it? Well only if I can do that to YOUR content, you ok with that Dom?
THE ONLY 'FAVOR' YOU ARE DOING HERE IS THIEVING MY WORK FOR YOURSELVES!
WHO ARE YOU KIDDING?!
"It is vital that they know this isn’t “copy this page,” but really “how can I organize or write this better, so it is more helpful to the reader.”
Actually, it's vital that you know this IS 'copy this page' and it's to help YOU, no one else! Those of us who went to the trouble of landeing page 1 do NOT need you or want you to go re-organize our content, 'out of the goodness of your heart' to make it 'better for the reader'
"How can I organize or write this #1 ranked content on google so it is better and more helpful to the reader?" Wtf?
1. It's already in the top 10 posts, it does not require your re-organization or help, neither does the reader. Don't kid yourself about who YOU are helping here.
2. Like Nathaniell described in one of his posts going back a couple of years now, we spend up to 6 hours or more doing a good post to rank and someone comes along and rewrites it in 20 minutes and ranks right beside you. Or in my case, I spend time and money doing courses so someone like 'Hilary from SEMrush' on HPD's blog educating how many thousands of bloggers this month in 'content marketing month' is now telling people to go to my posts and 'organize this better'.
Bare Ruthless Honesty Finally
Scrape off the sugary icing about helping the reader and glossing over the content curation aspect of it all this is how they go on to define SEO, and I've heard some people in here echo this but thankfully it is not everyone:
"Show Them Who They Should Beat
SEO is sometimes taking something that is ranking well and making an article that is better.
If I’m asking a content writer to write content based on a set of keywords, I always give them examples of “we need to do better than this.”
So does this mean Dom wants us to go scan his HPD site and blogs and emails and podcasts and 're-organize' it all, well just the posts doing well on page 1? Same with SEMrush? That's the comment I left on their blog tonite, awaiting response.
As for people who've never ever written anything original can you imagine they go rehash a good post to get themselves ranked, then someone else comes along and rehashes that rehash - how's the reader doing at this point? Helped? I don't think so!
- the internet soon becomes a very boring place with very similar and inaccurate information, because no one is checking original sources, it's all copycat at the end of the day.
That is actually happening out there, bloggers are getting bad names and being warned off certain subjects like finance or health rather than ruin people's lives with nonsense advice. I suppose as long as we keep all this inhouse the cess pit is confined? Is google going to come out with an algorithm to hit down this type of 'SEO' yet again...meanwhile SEO marketing has a very bad reputation by other scammy marketers who make a fortune selling people on the idea of launches or whatever, just about anything except SEO.
That's like saying let me organize the money in your bank account better, now that you've earned it already.
It would be more 'helpful to the reader' if you chose the articles NOT ranking and 'improved' their content'!
**I have been providing people in the health niche with good sources for their original quality content and will continue to do so.
Mary
Update: Dom says he removed Hilary's 'advice' there, as it was open to be misunderstood yet that wasn't what he'd intended with it. While I respect Dom's posts that I've read in the past remain concerned about his guest blogger Hilary's advice.
Recent Comments
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Oh my, just been reading the comments after reading the post.
to be honest my head is spinning.
I really do not know what to think.
So I will leave it there
we came to a friendly agreement that Hilary's words were open to misinterpretation and so were removed...all is well, and I left him a comment on his blog
Okay, I am glad that you are all moving forward now.
Things like this can give a place a bad name.
Thanks
Jennifer
Mozzy, I really feel for you. You take a lot of pride in your work, and there’s much care and creativity in the effort. I can understand how seeing that advice must have made you feel.
We learn by emulating what we admire, but comparing what students naturally do as part of the learning process, with blatant attempts to commercially profit from others’ efforts, is flaky.
I can see the ad boards of certain writers’ job sites littered with shameless requests for ‘rewriting’ of articles. The practice is widespread.
This concerns me, because it’s just one more vector of poor health and life outcomes for writers.
Writers, no matter how brilliant they may be, have long lived a tenuous existence. The arts council of Victoria here in Oz also published a detailed survey and study in which they revealed that many writers were suffering from mental/emotional disorders SOLELY because of their precarious professional existence, and the way they were so often professionally exploited (AKA robbed).
The rewriting plagiarists of the world simply add to their existing woes.
I can’t refer to the original posters who’ve upset you here, as I’m not familiar with their work and attitudes. But on this topic in general, I think we’ve already had many agreements.
Right now I’m in the gathering phase of my research project, and I feel like I’m really drowning in promotional emails and ecomm spiels. I’m trying to immerse and wear many of these ecomm hats as well, in order to gain a proper appreciation of it all.
But a funny sensation takes hold after reading soooo many of these blogs and emails every day. So many sound alike. And some immediately stand out as rewrites. I’m even at the point where I can draw a family tree for certain original posts, and every derivative descendent it’s spawned.
Now this may or may not console you, but so far, in that giant maw of words, I’ve not once seen derivative work which was in any way superior to the original.
So - you, being you, will always be fabulous, and anyone who wishes to run with your words, is doing the literary equivalent of running around in public wearing your undies on their head.
They just haven’t realised it, yet. ;)
LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!! :D
keeled over laughing here!!! The undies on the head - love where your mind goes! So funny about the fabulous too! :D
That's a great visual of the family tree of origin!
As for the derivative content not being superior - yes, butchering, ahem, reorganizing our good work as well as outranking us, double whammy !
Wowsa you sound busy there!
Thanks for the encouragement, I admire your hard work and high standards in the midst of all the other shenanigans!
Well... the outranking may be an annoyance for a little while, but consider that:
1. Ranking is not fixed in stone, and will fluctuate in response to a number of things, over time;
2. Keeping up with the Jones is much harder to do if you’re not actually an originator of content and;
3. Despite the mantra that ‘top rankers are top sellers,’ people are not dumbly inclined to just feed off the first result they see. They will still search and research to find the best value, and authority advice. If that’s what you offer consistently, your click-through and site stickiness will be what push your ranking up past your Fonda-single-white-female impersonators. :)
Just keep being better!
Whew that is something rotten out there Mary, I have also read the below comment. I think someone should have picked up the phone or sent an email to ask you first if they can use your article before they did what they did....it is well enough to shut the door after the horse has bolted!... but it does not solve the issue...I hope it gets resolved...wishing you well
No-one used her article. Someone on my site recommended "reading the best articles and trying to beat them" as a way to produce good content, and Mary interpreted that as us saying people should steal content.
the quotes I used are direct from your article, there's a direct statement to go organize, hard to interpret that any other way, the help the reader bit was a joke
and that's from your newsletter to your list, not just a random comment on your site
Mary I've removed that entire paragraph from the blog post now because even though I maintain it's a misunderstanding, I don't want anyone else to misunderstand it. This is a very hurtful and distressing post that you've written here and I don't want to fight about it anymore.
Mary I think you've missed the point of what Hillary was writing on her guest post.
She's talking about giving writers instructions and guidelines so they don't go and write the article and when it comes back, it's not comprehensive enough or it doesn't really answer the audiences questions properly. So sending them examples of the best content out there on the topic and saying "You should aim to do something better than them" is perfectly normal. She's not saying "Go and see what they've done and re-write it".
In fact she explicitly says...and you've even quoted this in your post...that it is NOT a copy and paste job.
You've read my posts, you've read my articles, you've seen my training. You know that I encourage people to produce good content.
If anything, what we should have done was clarify Hillary's explanation. So now I’ve deleted that part of the post to avoid others thinking we are suggesting people copy others work.
That wasn’t the intention at all and you’re right to get angry about it.
I did ask the comment on your blog and I've asked things on your site before that did not seem to get to you, I get answers in here
I used direct quotes from your Hilary blog above,
""It is vital that they know this isn’t “copy this page,” but really “how can I organize or write this better, so it is more helpful to the reader.”
Thanks for removing advice or seeming advice for people to go reorganize the top ranking content out there, we've had some members in here telling people to go write out other people's posts in their own words, we're swamped with content curation advice, it's a battle and I don't think I misunderstood Hilary.
I will remove what I said about the coincidence in my blog above but I don't think I misunderstood what she was encouraging there and like you said, it is open to being read that way by many
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Hello Mary,
Thanks for the good post!!!
I am quite interested in how you organized your post.