Make sure your blog posts, articles and web content are written correctly and make sense....
You know the
scenario.... You have several blogs
and / or websites and you are determined to keep the content on them fresh by
posting at least one new post or article daily. But - where to find the time to write them, let alone come up
with new ideas for content on a daily basis.
Enter
outsourcing via PeoplePerHour, AirTasker, Elance, Odesk, Fiverr etc. These services are a godsend to the active
blogger BUT there are some pitfalls.
One of the most common problems, if your blog posts and articles need to
be written in the Queen's English, is that many of these writers do not write
the Queen's English particularly well.
Chances are the pieces are sometimes even written in another language
altogether and then translated into English by our friend Google Translator. Certainly some of them read that way....
Another
favourite method is the ubiquitous article spinner; a very handy tool indeed in
the hands of someone who knows what they're doing with it but the producer of
very ordinary, and sometimes quite amusingly bad, articles if one doesn't keep
on top of them.
Some
cultures also favour verbose, ornate, flowery language which again is not
typically English. Which is fine unless your native language is
English. Then it just looks kinda .... strange and 'spammy'.
Or those
pesky SEO words and phrases, that have to be included if you want anyone to
actually find your blog or site, look like they’ve just been plonked into the
text without any real attempt to integrate them!
Now, I'm not saying ban outsourced article writing altogether!! I have an online research, writing, editing and proof reading service myself so I'd hate to shoot myself in the foot. What I am saying is that if you are in the habit of outsourcing some of your writing then you should at least read the article, blog post or whatever before you post it just to be sure it makes sense, both literally and figuratively. There is already a proliferation of poorly written garbage out there in Internet land so why add to it!
