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Should I Publish Free Articles On My Blog? Posted: 30 May 2008 02:41 PM CDT Earlier today I was asked to take a look at a blog of a reader to give it a critique. On arriving on the blog I immediately noticed that at the top of every article on the front page of the blog there was a copyright notice which ascribed the copyright to a ‘free article’ website. On opening each post I saw that at the bottom of each post was a paragraph byline from an author with links back to their own websites. Classic ‘free article’ stuff. The concept of ‘free article’ websites is simple. Authors wanting to build their web profile and incoming links to their sites write articles and submit them to a ‘free article’ website. The free article website then allows any website owner to republish those articles as long as they do so with the links that are in them in tact. In this way the author of the article gets links (which helps their search engine ranking), the article site also gets free links back to them and the person using the article gets free content. Everyone wins right? Wrong….. I won’t unpack whether the article writer wins (that’s a whole other post) but as a blogger republishing free articles on your blog you could actually be doing more harm than good to your blog. Let me illustrate this with a simple exercise: On searching ArticlesBase.com (a free article site) for ‘blogging’ to see what articles they have there an article titled ‘13 Steps to Successful Blogging’ comes up in the search results (as pictured below): I highlighted a segment of the article and plugged it into Google within “quotes” to see how many exact matches I could get for it (to see how many times the article has been republished). Here’s the search results on Google: Google sees that phrase ‘about’ 54,000 times! There are three main reasons why I wouldn’t use ‘free articles’ on a blog: 1. A key to growing blogs is unique and useful information - if you want to grow a blog into a profitable and sustainable venture you need to provide your readers with useful and unique information. Post the above article and you’re 1 in 54,000 (and counting). 2. A key to growing blogs is personal voice and connection - if your blog is filled with free articles you’ll end up with a collection of content that is disjointed, that doesn’t personally connect with readers and is devoid of personality. Blog readers will subscribe and become loyal to a blog when they feel a personal connection and want to track with someone over the long haul. Not when they see a disjointed collecting of articles by a different person every day. 3. A key to ranking well in Search Engines is ‘Unique’ content - using an article that appears 54,000 times on the web almost guarantees that it’ll never be found by one of the biggest sources of traffic out there - Google. For starters you’re competing with 54,000 other versions of the same article, secondly you’re competing with the ‘free article’ sites you got the post off (remember they generate millions of links from their free articles) and on top of all that Google hates what it calls ‘duplicate content’ and works hard to not rank highly content that is republished over and over again. The article above does appear in the rankings for a search for ’successful blogging’ in the #1 position - but the site that ranks for it is a free article site. The long and short of it is that as a blogger you’re doing yourself and your readers a disservice by using ‘free articles’. Share This

Web Video University Review Posted: 30 May 2008 09:25 AM CDT Around a month ago regular readers will know that I wrote that I was about to start an online video making course at WebVideoUniversity. Around 10 other ProBlogger readers signed up with me and have been partaking in this four week course over the month of May. I said that I’d give a review of the course at the end of the month so wanted to give a little feedback for others considering signing up. I should say up front that I’m behind in the course. I’m still getting through week 3’s content - the reason being that there’s just so much of it and I’m rather time poor at the moment. Luckily buying the course gives you 12 months of access to it, including any new content that is added in future weeks. So I’ve still got 11 months to get through weeks 3 and 4! I wouldn’t normally review a course half completed but enrollments for the June course are open for a few more days and as there’s a baby about to arrive at the Rowse House I thought I’d better review what I’ve done as it could be another month til I get to complete it! So how’s the course been? Overall my experience so far has been positive. Content There is no shortage of information, it is clearly presented and of a high quality. The content is largely presented in video with lots of examples given. As mentioned above - there’s lots of content given. Week 1 has 12 videos (around 50 minutes), week 2 has 24 videos (around 3 hours of content), week 3 has 24 videos (over 3 hours) and week 4 has 20 videos (around 2.5 hours). That’s around 10 hours of teaching in total. Topics covered in videos include: Week 1 - in this week it’s mainly introductory information around different concepts and tools. There’s an intro to video editing software, cameras, audio, video lighting, music and voice overs, using stock clips, making a teleprompter, green screens/backdrops and technical terms. Week 2 - this week focuses upon introducing the idea of ‘videos that sell’ where there is teaching on the kinds of videos that work well in selling online. Then you get into video editing and learning how to do some of the basics like working with text, using transitions and effects and many other aspects of creating a video. Week 3 - this is what I’m working through at present and is focused upon more advanced video editing techniques, green screen video, whiteboard video, 3D compositing and other editing tricks. Week 4 - is what I’m looking forward to more advice on and includes getting video on the web. The focus of the course is ‘making videos that sell’ and as a result there’s an emphasis upon making ‘web commercials’ but I’m learning things that I think I’ll be able to apply in the making of the type of videos that I’m making here on ProBlogger (talking head ones) as many of the principles apply. Each week not only has teaching but a ‘resource’ section which has lots of helpful links, examples and further learning suggestions. Presentation David Kaminski is the presenter in the videos and he’s done a really excellent job of pulling this course together. The quality of the videos are great. At times David is slightly dry in his presentation style (that could be extenuated by me doing this course late at night when I am also a little ‘dry’ myself) but he explains concepts so clearly and in a way that even I (a complete dunce technologically) can understand and his ‘dry’ approach actually grew on me the more I watched (after watching him for hours I feel like I see more of him than my best friends). I really appreciate the way that the course is broken down into bite sized videos - it means it’s not overwhelming and that you can actually do the course a little at a time in your own pace over time. Support One of the things that I’ve appreciated about the course is the support that David has given participants. He’s not only been helpful to me but in chatting to a few other participants they’ve also been impressed by his prompt replies to questions (usually well within 24 hours). He’s even added a section in the course’s home page which has video answers to some of the questions he’s been getting. It’s refreshing to find someone not only who knows what he’s talking about but who is genuinely interested in helping people apply it to their own situation. Mac Users Should Note… If you use a Mac then you need to note two things. Firstly there’s a bug that prevents you viewing the videos at present using Firefox unless you are using version 3. Safari is fine to watch it in though - no problems there. The other thing to note is that David uses Sony Vegas as his video editing package of choice and illustrates editing using that. He is currently making tutorials for Mac users using Final Cut Express and says that these videos will be available within a month or so. I am a Mac user so found watching him edit on Sony Vegas a little frustrating at times but was amazed how much of what he showed was so easily transferable to my Mac software. Having the Mac focused tutorials will be fantastic though and I am glad I have access to them for another 11 months. Overall - I’m impressed with WebVideoUniversity and am glad that I’ve invested in it. I know that there’s another 10 or so ProBlogger readers who did the course so I’d love to hear your opinions on it too if you’ve done it! If you’re interested in joining in June’s run of WebVideoUniversity you can sign up for the next day or two here. Share This

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