Content Farms

If you’re looking for microwaves, you’ve come to the right place. Our website is the best place to buy microwaves. You won’t find better microwaves or cheaper microwaves anywhere else. We invite you to check out our great selection of microwaves.*

Ok, now replace “microwave” with any other word. Plug in the word “paper”; now try “dog food”, “baby tomatoes”, “tarantulas”? They all work. This is keyword stuffing and it’s in deep black hat SEO territory. This may seem entirely ridiculous but there is a lot of content like this, and worse, out there.

Content farms, where people are paid to produce keyword stuffed articles, encourage a low-end vacuity in order to artificially bring traffic to their sites. (The phrase “content farm” makes me think of an airless warehouse full of beleaguered writers churning out articles while a pudgy man with a cigar looks on.) People get paid $5 per article, which means that a person can’t afford to spend more than about 10 minutes per article. These articles are meant for spiders, not humans; you can’t exactly think up, research, type and proof an article in 10 minutes and expect to produce anything of real value.

Google's Panda Update

Since Google’s Panda update, which changed their algorithm in order to better detect sites that use black hat SEO strategies, the content farms have been lying fallow — or if not completely fallow, there certainly has been a significant drop in traffic for many of the content farm sites.

This is not only a good thing for the online researcher looking for quality, unique information, but also for writers.

The traditional writer’s niche in print — journalists, feature writers and researchers — has been under threat for some time now with many print publications running at a loss as more readers move online. More and more writers and journalists are moving online. And with Google’s new algorithm, online writers just got a whole lot more valuable. 

Not only can you no longer write brain-dead articles that work only for optimisation, but now there is a demand for quality writing. The online community and businesses alike are looking for good writers; writers that are wordsmiths, that can make articles sing.

And advertisers are moving their money into content marketing so the “niche” just got a whole lot bigger. Content marketing is still only being used by the early adopters in South Africa, but as more companies adopt this marketing model, the sheer amount of content out there will reach a critical mass. The only way to differentiate yourself will be through the standard and quality of your content. Good writers, now so in demand, will earn more money as their product becomes a more valuable commodity. Mediocre writing will fade and bad writing will (hopefully) disappear altogether.

Google’s Panda updates mean that more and more businesses and marketers will be forced to don the white hat for SEO, and that is a good thing. The Internet is a more interesting place when unique, quality information comes up in a search and better writing is encouraged. Plus, writers, serially underpaid throughout history, might finally get their own back.

Do you think businesses will pay handsomely for good writers? Do you think Google’s Panda updates have made a difference, or will people simply find new ways to trick the SEO? Let us know what you think bu commenting below or connect on Twitter @SoundIdea

*“Keyword stuffing” example taking from http://www.submitawebsite.com/blog/2009/12/what-is-keyword-stuffing.html

Sound Idea Digital specialises in Digital Marketing. For more information, contact 012 66 44 227 or email to info@soundidea.co.za | www.soundidea.co.za