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I’ve been using Submit Your Article now for about 3 months and have been very impressed with their service. They are a service that allows you to upload an article and have many different versions of that article sent to a huge raft of article directories.
I’ve used article spinners in the past as well as article submitters, but I’ve never found anything that works this well at doing both the spinning and the submission.
If you’re not familiar with the concept of article spinning, it’s essentially a means by which the original content is re-written prior to submission so that each directory has a slightly different version of the article so that the search engines don’t see it as duplicate content. This works by providing alternatives to a variety of sentences or phrases throughout the article so that when they’re mixed and matched, no two versions are the same.
By the way, please don’t use the comments for this post to start challenging my views on duplicate content! My view is that we can’t really be sure. I know that some people feel very strongly that duplicate content isn’t an issue, just as some feel equally as strongly that it is. In my view, if there’s a chance that it is, then I’ll take steps to avoid it where practical.
In the past I’ve worked with 2 main types of article spinners – automatic ones and manual ones. The automatic spinners were a disaster in my opinion. They worked at getting different versions of the content out there, but the resulting articles were often hard to read. The manual ones produced good results, but they usually had to be created by embedding all the many versions of a sentence in the content, making proof-reading really difficult.
Submit Your Article gets around this by allowing us to upload the article first, then breaking it down behind the scenes and presenting us with sentences to re-write. This means that the original article is always perfectly readable yet we retain the benefit of manually writing the alternatives. Following their guidelines, I typically end up with an average difference between a sample of spun articles of 40-50%, which is pretty good!
The other huge advantage that Submit Your Article has over other submission engines that I’ve used is the possibility to set a distribution timeframe. The opinion in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) circles is that if a huge amount of content all linking back to one site appears too quickly, then it could be that the site owner is trying to manipulate their rankings (which is entirely the point of SEO!). By spreading the distribution over a longer timeframe, this is less likely to become an issue.
It’s not all roses though. The one thing that really frustrates me is how Submit Your Article handles sub-titles. I like to break up my articles with sub-titles as I believe it makes them easier to read, as well as easier to write. However, unless you put a full-stop (period) at the end of them, they’ll be included in the subsequent paragraph when being presented for re-writing. To deal with this you have two options:
- Use full stops at the end of sub-titles (which looks messy, but works)
- Keep a copy of your article to hand whilst editing the alternatives so that you can easily identify these titles.
I’ve tried both and they both seem to work so at least we have a solution – although I’d prefer it if this wasn’t an issue in the first place!
I’ve noticed a huge benefit since we started using Submit Your Article in a brand new niche. After uploading just 6 articles, we were seeing our content appearing multiple times on each of the first 3 pages in Google. This started bringing us organic traffic much quicker than I’ve ever seen it before and is something that I’ll be exploring further.
In my opinion, Submit Your Article is the best article submission service currently available and I would encourage you to have a look at what they can offer your business. Go there now and take a look:
A friend of mine has recently started getting into Internet Marketing. You know how it is – for years you’re advising them that it would be a good thing for them but they think you’re mad, then they go and spend a fortune on some course that teaches them exactly what you would have shown them for free!
Anyway, my friend told me that she was about to register her first 2 domains with GoDaddy, as per her instructions. At the time, I suggested that there might be better companies to use for Internet Marketing purposes and that I would recommend Namecheap (who I use for all my new domains). However, since she was provided with step-by-step video tutorials showing GoDaddy’s interface, she was reluctant to take my advice.
Moving forward a few weeks, she came back to me yesterday needing help as both of her sites were down! As far as I could tell, it looked like the DNS had got messed up. She told me that it was not the first time, but that previously, the sites had magically re-appeared after a few hours. This time, it was nearly 2 days that they’d been down! She was also really upset that in spite of having videos to follow, she’d had to figure it all out herself as the user interface had been completely overhauled….!
As of today, we’ve got her domain transferring across to Namecheap, with a small saving thanks to a discount code. For the record, you can save money at Namecheap using these coupon codes:
- To transfer your domain – SWITCH2NC
- For new domains – SNOWNEEDLE
- For 50% off 1st month VPS – VPSBOMB
- For discounted hosting – SNOWSTORM
On that last point, I should add that my preferred Web host is Hostgator. Their current coupon code is ‘SNOWMAN’ and will give you a 20% discount off your order.
I’d love to know what experiences other people have had with their domain providers, whether GoDaddy, Namecheap or any other company. Please leave a comment and let me know – good or bad.
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll have noticed already that the title of this blog has changed from “John’s Tech Blog” to “Internet Marketing with John”. I’ve decided to make this change for a number of reasons:
1. All of my posts were tending more towards Internet Marketing in any case and being restricted to just a “tech blog” meant that I sometimes found it hard to write about what was important to me.
2. If I’m honest, it’s Internet Marketing that excites me – not technology itself!
With this in mind, I’ve decided to rebrand the blog and start focusing more at Internet Marketing in general and specifically, how technology can be harnessed to help you succeed more quickly and more effectively.
If you’re new here, please consider signing up for the newsletter (which is also in the middle of a makeover) as we’ll soon be releasing “subscriber only” content and freebies. In the meantime, if you have any comments or feedback, please leave them against this post – I do read and respond to every comment, where appropriate.
I spent today at the World Internet Summit in the UK where we learned about a fantastic new product that they’ve launched as part of the 4-day event. It’s called the “Internet Marketing Survival Kit” and offers a choice of 3 kits to suit whatever level you’re currently at with your Internet Marketing. There’s also a great deal on all the kits – more on this later!
I purchased the complete package so that I could give you an initial impression of what’s there and how good it is. None of the products have ever been sold on the Internet prior to this launch so it’s all brand new material. However, if you’re interested in how to make it in the current economy, you’ll have to hurry as the offer is only avaiable until Sunday, at which point, the site will be taken down!
Right now, it’s getting late and I’ve got an early start tomorrow, so if you’re interested, simply head on over to the site:
http://www.internet-marketing-survival-kit.com/
Be sure to check back tomorrow for more! 
Amazon have recently released their “Best of 2009″ top 100 list, as they do every year. It’s interesting to see this technique at work:
It’s worth looking at this not just as a great opportunity to get some popular Christmas presents (yes, it’s only a few weeks away right now!) instead, look at what Amazon are doing through the filter of your own business. How can you produce a “top <something> of 2009″ list? How about a “top blog posts of 2009″? Or “top products of 2009″?
If you’re an affiliate, look at the products that sold best this year, then do a “top recommended products of 2009″ list.
What else?
Well, Read more…