James SpillaneOne of the best and most popular link building strategies in the SEO World is Guest Posting. It is a long process of prospecting, pitching and waiting. In this article, we will discuss 5 possible reasons why guest posting is not Article Marketing 2.0. This is for us to understand that the two should be taken separately moving forward for more effectiveness.
Guest Posting: How you do it?
Guest posting is executed by creating your blogs and looking for another blogger, blog site owner or webmaster that has the same niche as you or your blogs, and you share to them your posts so they share it too with their readers and social networks. In return, you get back links and get to expand your networks too! The primary goal of guest posting is added exposure and relationship building and is indeed a high tier link building strategy. But due to some updates of Google, guest posting had suffered some consequence which we will talk about later.
Web 1.0 VS Web 2.0
To understand Article Marketing 2.0 and its 1.0 predecessor, let us take on their roots, which are Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, which are web algorithms that both article marketing versions incorporate correspondingly. Web 1.0 is the evolution of the World Wide Web that incorporates a top-down approach over the use of the WWW and its user interface. Its core principle is that users can view content but cannot reflect on them which results in a one-way exchange of information.
Then came Web 2.0, which is a web rebirth after the dot-com crash. It redefined the era of the WWW by incorporating a new world filled with interaction to further maximize SEO and linkbuilding quality. For an immediate view of 1.0 and 2.0’s differences, let us dissect both and highlight each contrasting characteristic.
Web 1.0:
- One-way
- Authoritarian
- Passive
- Static
- Closed
Web 2.0:
- Two-way
- Democratic
- Active
- Dynamic
- Collaborative
Article 1.0: Article Marketing via EzineArticles
Now that we have a good idea of what 1.0 and 2.0 is in terms of article marketing, let us further understand how 1.0 is done before in business using a popular body called EzineArticles. This organization aims to provide content for authors looking for supplemental content that they can use for permission-based newsletter. Businesses market their information and product offerings through writing articles and publishing them and it is through a website like EzineArticles.com that those articles can be sent and published. Guests should just sing-in and log-in to start submitting and request for publishing.
The overall theme for marketing before like through EzineArticles is really a one-way street, and authoritarian. Just create business content, and publish away. But today marks a new era of marketing as the free-flowing of two-way information is being encouraged by the new Web 2.0 principle which we will tackle next.
Article 2.0: Article Marketing Today
Modern businesses are learning to maximize Web 2.0’s principles, and tools like Facebook or Wikipedia that allows guests to drop by, comment, or further spread the information are becoming more and more effective. Writing blogs about the business and marketing it via those websites are today’s great strategies, but unfortunately, not all organizations are modern in the sense that they still don’t employ this or see its vast potential. Article marketing or business marketing for that matter has evolved, as well as SEO and linkbuilding because of search engine king Google’s algorithm updates, which we will discuss next.
The Google Panda and Penguin Update
Two latest updates that Google released and implemented are the Panda and Penguin. This had a factor in the way we do article marketing before and today. Google Panda was released last February 2011 to change Google’s search results ranking algorithm. The goal of this is to lower the rank of low-quality and thin sites, but return higher-quality sites on the higher parts of the search results.
Penguin is the newest algorithm update that was released only last April of this year. Panda aimed at downranking websites that provided poor user experience. The algorithm follows the logic by which Google’s human quality ratersdetermine a website’s quality. So this really encouraged principles of Web 2.0 such as being two-way and democratic, as human interaction is being involved in the algorithm. So methods used in article marketing such as through EzineArticles which is one-way is not that effective in SEO and linkbuilding anymore, while two-way democratic blogsites and social networking sites have become much more effective than ever before.
Guest Posting: Not Article Marketing 2.0
Since Google Penguin has put a halt on one-way Web 1.0 types of article marketing, guest posting alone should not be treated as article marketing 2.0. Since one-way article marketing’s effectiveness had been confined by Penguin, many people panicked and see guest posting as a way out, thus treating is as the new way of 2.0 article marketing. But this should not be the case. Guest posting is a part of the new wave of article marketing, but it should not be treated as the only option!
It should be remembered that Google Penguin will only punish thin sites, like those that contain stuff that makes little sense or that fails to cut an ice with its intended target audience. Because of this mindset, there had been a boom in the number of bloggers, and blog owners are finding it really difficult to differentiate between great and poor bloggers. This in turn results to the non-popularity and removal of many guest posts that ends up in some genuine guest bloggers suffering.
Also, due to the massive flow of guest posting and the abuse from both guest and host, the value and quality of real guest posting is tainted more and more. In attempts to get links, SEO individuals, whether spammy in their articles or not, can just submit their works and the blog site owner publishes it. It is truly a win-win situation for both guest and host, but then again, quality might suffer.
So the right thing to do is to simply accept that article marketing consists of many elements, not just guest posting. Let us all put off some steam in doing guest posts to avoid abusing it and to avoid self-destructing of the guest posting world, as it is a great SEO method too that helps in spreading great information. Google will not penalize great articles and information, so do things right and maximize the other new methods of article marketing such as employing Facebook and other democratic sites to increase your SEO and linkbuilding strategies. Guest posting is fine as long as we don’t abuse it or use it only as an alternative.
Author bio:
Celina Conner is a Yoga Instructor, an alumna of Marketing Management at Martin College Australia and a mother of a beautiful daughter, Krizia. She has a passion in cooking and formulating vegan recipes.Follow her adventures on her Twitter.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by James Spillane.
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Nice article about guest posting.Guest posting is still popular.
While you’ve arrived at the pertinent point in your conclusion: yes, guest posting alone is not a viable strategy; I feel you’ve addressed it in a muddled way.
We live in a world where social media has taken over and, therefore, the most useful way to gain popularity, visitors and clients is by utilizing these tools. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and others provide a great platform to start with – and don’t forget things like video content on YouTube.
Article Marketing is all about your exposure more than anything. Doing everything you can to have these articles seen by as many people as possible, that’s article marketing.
This is just a unique way to attract your readers. Make sure you return the favor though. Will be convenient if the both of you would be doing the same thing.