Pre-written article uses
When people first hear about using pre-written articles, many immediately think that articles will be used for a website and specifically for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Whilst many purchasers do in fact use their content for a website and or SEO, this is not always the case. Here we discuss many other pre-written articles uses.
Website and blogs
The most common use for pre-written articles is for websites and or blogs. Whilst not necessarily for SEO, it is important for anyone to have educational and informative content on their website rather than just pure sales messages. With more and more people researching online – not just for products and services but to learn about a specific topic, it makes sense to help people make an informed choice for when they do need to make a purchase. By educating potential buyers on your area of expertise, you are building authority and trust, which will go a long way when a buyer is ready to make a decision.
Imagine you are looking for a product, and you speak to one company, who simply gives you the price of the product and a few features. Then you ring a second company who strikes up a conversation with you about why you want that specific product, what problem you are trying to solve, why you thought that was the right product, and then went on to offer you a wealth of advice and knowledge, and perhaps offers you a different product that was more suitable for your needs? Who would you be more inclined to buy from? This is the exact same thing that is happening but on your website, not over the phone. Educating and informing someone makes them feel better about their purchase.
If you are a web developer, often your clients do not have any content to put on their website, so with pre-written, you can offer complete content packs as part of your offering, as well as introducing your clients to use pre-written articles for ongoing content.
Search Engine Optimisation
SEO is the main reason that people think about adding content to their website, and although it is important so people discover you through search, it is still not as important as the reason discussed above. In the past, many website owners fell into the trap of adding poorly written content to their website just so Google would index the site and show the website higher in the search results. Not only is Google onto this, but what is the point of driving people to your website if the content doesn’t make sense or it is hard to read? Having good quality, relevant content is not only going to help your search rankings but also keep people there once they arrive.
Adding content that you have purchased and tailored to your own business (so the content is unique) will help your search rankings. Many people are concerned about duplicate content, however, if you have edited the content for your brand and company tone, then the content will be unique. Google also uses many factors – in fact over 200 factors when determining which websites to show when a search has been performed, so no two search results are the same.
Email newsletters
A great way for businesses to stay top of mind is by sending regular email newsletters. Two key metrics of email marketing are retention (the number of people who remain on your email list) and open rates (the number of people who open and read your email). There is also a click-through rate depending on what the email purpose is, which measures how many people were interested enough in your email content to click through to your website.
Adding content to email newsletters will help in all key metrics over simply sending sales or reminder emails. Often when someone receives an email, they are not immediately ready to purchase, and if the email is simply trying to make a sale, the email can be ignored. But for reasons similar to why it is important to have content on your website, adding engaging, useful and educational content in an email newsletter is more likely to see it opened and read (and even drive traffic back to your website). Over time, people will appreciate the informative nature of your emails, and you will remain top of mind when they do need to purchase your product or service.
Printed materials
Yes, people still do read printed materials, and sometimes you need content to put in printed materials. Magazines, brochures, printed newsletters, flyers – all just a few examples of printed materials that might require content.
Internal communications
Depending on the size of an organisation, there may be an obligation or requirement to communicate regularly with staff. The subject of the communication is varied but could include health and well being, career advice, mental health, work-life balance and light-hearted articles. The pre-written content might not be the core of the messaging to staff and stakeholders, but it can certainly augment the communications and make it more interesting and uplifting.
Downloadable content
There is a lot of downloadable content on websites for a variety of different uses – often referred to as e-books. Many e-books are a collection of related articles that have been curated together to cover a subject in more depth. Examples of e-books include lead magnets, tutorials, advice, guides, collections and whitepapers. Many e-books are used to collect email addresses of potential customers – typically called a lead magnet. A lead magnet is usually placed on a landing page along with a form.
Native advertising / Content Marketing
Native advertising (and some would argue that it is the same as content marketing) is appearing more and more around the internet. Native marketing platforms such as Outbrain and Taboola appear at the bottom of more and more publisher sites as a preferred advertising strategy to just banners ads. Native advertising is effectively a link to a piece of content designed to drive traffic to the advertiser’s website. Many small businesses need articles so that they have content to place natively, and of course more content once a reader arrives at their website. pre-written articles are an excellent and cost-effective place to get native content.
Video
Many businesses are turning to video to market their services. However, the same principles of content marketing apply, and video should not just be a sales message. Many static articles purchased from pre-written article marketplaces like Partica can easily be turned into a video script – an educational and informative video.
Summary
From the examples above you can see that there are many uses for pre-written content, so make sure you utilise any pre-written content in any way that you know will be most appropriate for your audience.
