I make a lot of judgements in my online business, judging the output of others. Every business person does that in one way or another. We critique a sales page, a video or a trial version whenever we are deciding whether to buy a new information product or software application. In doing a competition analysis, we are always judging elements of our competitors’ business website design or newsletters. And some of us wear the critic’s hat when we outsource our own writing assignments or contract for a professional writing service.
I do all of my own writing for the Internet marketing niche, including the articles for content marketing. But I often purchase the work of others for many of the other niches in which we compete. Furthermore, each day, I receive approximately twenty unsolicited articles that other marketers ask me to publish on some of my sites, although I never accept unsolicited articles for my main marketing sites.
I have learned from having wasted money. I have found the best of the best, finally, and I have trained them. Their work never needs meaningful editing, so I pay them what they actually deserve. However, of the unsolicited articles…I reject a substantial majority even though they come to me as free content.
My reasons for rejection are fairly consistent. These are the most common of the problems:
* An astonishing number make absolutely no sense in English. All verbal messages in any language get their meaning from vocabulary selection and the arrangement of those words (in other words, grammar). It is certainly posssible that a writer may write brilliantly in her or his native language, but, without complete fluency in a second language, the writer will never be able to write effective marketing copy. The writer (or the writer’s employer) needs to hire a native speaker of the language to edit (or even rewrite) the article.
* The articles are submitted in the wrong category. I receive articles about subjects that simply make no sense for publication in a blog that has a theme such as the one to which the writer has submitted. I receive submissions for my business oriented blog that have to do with everything from planning a wedding to choosing a new plasma television. All the writers have to do is to put a business spin on their idea, somethat that could often be done with a little rewriting and an extra paragraph. For example, one could write an article that I would accept about the best approaches to starting a wedding planning business. A web author could switch the things to look for in a plasma TV to the best features in a plasma monitor to be used in business video presentations. Either of those, I might be happy to publish.
* The articles are not well spun. I have spun articles for many years, so I can usually recognize within a paragraph or two if an article has not been well prepared for spinning. It does me no good as a webmaster if I publish an article that may be published in fifteen other sites. Under the best scenario, my traffic is going to be reduced to about seven percent of what it might have been if I had published a genuinely unique article on the same subject.
Those of you who understand these problems should quickly see the solutions. Either write well in your targeted language, submit your article to the correct niche and use strict spinning standards, or contract with a skilled web article author who is well versed in Internet marketing.