No place for good advice on web
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I saw a well known travel site asking for submissions on travel in Europe on a budget of around $100 a day per person so I pitched an article I’d written for my travel site giving advice and a costing breakdown for a stay in Edinburgh on a daily budget of £50 sterling (approx $100) per person based on two travellers sharing a room. I received a reply from the editor saying that although my article offered good advice, it’s wasn’t written with search engines in mind and didn’t have a unique, fresh or zany angle which would be tagged on social media sites.
Now I can take rejection and I don’t think I’m a fantastic writer and any site I approach should be desperate to publish my material. I can see it from the editor’s perspective, he runs a site with high traffic and knows what he’s talking about. So basically I should write material which is key word stuffed and written for a search engine more than for a human or something quirky to get attention in social media sites. Or if I’m very clever combine the two.
Well there’s no point is trying to peddle boring good advice intended for humans versus machines, I’d better read up on search engine optimisation and keywords and try something a bit wacky to get noticed.
Now I’m not so sure when I’ve seen spikes in my traffic when an article or blog post is featured on a social network site such as Stumbleupon but although traffic increased there was no corresponding increase in revenue either through clicking on ads or affiliate links. An increase in traffic may be of value to a site which sells advertising on a CPM (fee for 1000 page views) basis but for me it’s pointless if it leads to no increase in revenue.
Maybe websites are so busy trying to grab readers attention and get highly ranked on social media sites that they are forgetting what the readers want, which in some cases may be good advice?
May 1st, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Maybe, and this is a big MAYBE…. your article is a little boring. MAYBE it’s just the same old advise you see everywhere. MAYBE what the editors were saying, was they want a fresh perspective and at a minimum, something written with its medium (the internet) taken into consideration. Because maybe, as much as you’d like to pout on the sidelines, this is the way the world works– writing is a business… gotta get eyes to the page.
I know you don’t want to hear this, but if you’re trying to write for Matador (which is where I’m guessing based on the description of the requested article) and THEY are rejecting you to write a piece at $25 a pop, then MAYBE you should look at modifying your approach. MAYBE it’s time for a re-write.
Just saying, maybe.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:05 am
Thanks for your comment, me.
I hold my hands up that my article is a bit boring. I’ve never claimed to be a fantastic travel writer. I try to write pieces that are useful, informative, entertaining and I agree my article about a £50 a day in Edinburgh is not particularly entertaining but some readers may find it useful and/or informative.
With regard to it not being written for the medium of the internet I disagree in some respects. Yes, not written for search engines but there are many links in the article for more information about museums, walks etc. I see this as an important part of writing for the internet that you don’t need to write about everything in detail but those readers who want more information are only a click away.
The obsession with getting “eyes to the page” doesn’t work for my business as they need to be targetted eyes who will spend some time reading the content, not just a quick click on the catchy title, a 5 second scan and then off to the next post tagged on the social media site.
.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:06 pm
I am afraid Karen it’s all about traffic and in return £££s, thats why they are looking for someone who will write an article that isn’t useful to the reader, but has been written for the search engines and social media sites.
Sod them.
Keep on writing, networking and using social networking tools that bring traffic.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:20 pm
So you also think that there isn’t enough focus on content that is useful to the reader? It’s strange that value to reader seems to be low in the list of priorities.
I just don’t see how traffic in itself = ££s unless as I said you are selling advertising by page views.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Karen,
Take Jaunted and Hotel Chatter why did Conde Nast buy them? Not because their content is the best on the web (it’s not in my opinion) but because they have over 1million visitors every month.
They can put out their brand and advertise on high traffic blogs.
The reader in my opinion is second in their thoughts.
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Darren, I assume that Conde Nast make money from selling ads on a fee per thousand page views then if they are so keen to take over high traffic blogs and also to reinforce the Conde Nast brand.
May 4th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Karen,
To be honest (I could be wrong) but it’s about 50/50 the potential advertising revenue and the fact that they have two popular blogs that they can promote the Conde Nast brand.
If you look at the Jaunted blog as it stands, very little in the way of ads and I don’t think that it’s because they don’t want advertising, I think it’s because travel companies just aren’t interested in banner advertising.
You would not believe how many requests I get each week for advertising through text link ads because it helps their Google rankings, but in return gets me penalised by Google for selling links.
It’s a massive challenge for bloggers, myself included.
Sorry I am going off topic! :)