The Bad Ol' Days Of Cheap Copywriting Are Over!

Website and blog owners have to get away from the idea that they can provide quality content cheaply. Those days are over and Google is cracking down like crazy. Reason being is Google wants valued and useful web pages. They're so sick of hack and cheap sites that just in the past year, thanks to their proprietary software, tens of millions of marketing sites got pushed so far down the search results that you would have to stand on a worm's head to find them.

Even when article after article is published by the SEO trades pointing this out, you'll always get some cheap bastard hunting around for cheap content and then try to pass it off as quality. I've seen it all. Copywriting companies run by criminals that exploit poor people even at gunpoint. Interpol and other global law enforcement have their hands full with these knuckleheads.

Google now wants posts at 1,000 or more words. 1,500 is the new average, not the 300 or 400 hack articles. Linkbuilding hack sites are DOOMED. I've been working with Google intensely for the past year as I've friends and relatives as execs. Those cheap Google News sites that everyone and their brother were cranking out got declared as fake news and even Facebook joined in thus crashing the profits of these sites and exposing them for what they are. It felt good watching them fall.

Brokering is dying off too. You can't ask someone to work for a measly $1 per 100 words, then charge the primary client $4 per 100 words. That's called exploitation and predatory. Clients who pay good money to these brokers only find out too soon their investment isn't work squat and the bad guys are long gone.

The algorithms for detecting shit copy and those who pay low for quality is getting scary. You can also send in any solicitations to Google regarding anyone trying to get away with this type of scam.

Copywriters are taken advantage of all the time and vice versa with publishers. You all know the games played. Stolen content, so called 'trials' for a job used to open an account for a bigger paying site and leaving the original writer in the dust.

You'll even have publishers go anal retentive and hyper critical of your writing skills just to try to beat you down in price. They'll try every trick in the book like promise the Moon and stars and then when you take the job, the terms change in a 'bait and switch' operation. I can't remember how many people I've had to take to court or have arrested around the world pulling this shit.

Thus the bottom line is, if you have a blog or website and you're trying Black Hat copy hiring and exploitation, you're doomed. All your sites will be banned or dropped off the face of the Earth. Not only is Google going to drop your sites, but they know your identity, company, investors, etc.. I wouldn't be surprised if they team up with your local law enforcement and government and have you drawn and quartered for these unsavory practices.

To prove what I'm saying, these stories are from the horse's mouth. Read em' and weep.

https://www.shoutmeloud.com/on-page-seo.html

https://www.mttr.io/blog/blogger-help/rise-long-form-content-means-business/

http://searchengineland.com/faq-all-about-the-new-google-rankbrain-algorithm-234440

https://www.ama.org/publications/MarketingNews/Pages/seo-rules-2016.aspx

https://www.snapagency.com/blog/whatll-be-the-best-length-for-a-blog-article-in-2016-for-seo

 

You sound like some kind of mad conspiracy theorist.


Of course brokers need to make a profit. They have to do a lot of work, managing the entire process from receiving orders and assigning work to their writers, overseeing the work so it is done on time, editing it, and working with the clients to ensure what they get is up to their standards. They also have to win business to keep their writers in work, recruit new writers when demand is high, and yes, trial them to ensure they are going to be able to deliver consistent quality and aren't going to be difficult to work with. Difficult writers make their job a lot harder, so it is as much about attitude as about quality, but in general trials are used because new writers are genuinely needed to meet client demand, not as some kind of scam.


If you resent the idea that people who run writing companies make any money off of doing it, the other option is to win clients for yourself and work directly for them, however clients who need a lot of content tend not to want the risk associated with having just one person working on their projects – everything can be thrown if that writer can't keep up with demand and of course, the client has to edit everything themselves and manage the writer. Normally, they'd rather mitigate the risk by hiring a company who have someone to do this for them. Most people, writers, brokers and clients, all understand this but evidently you think it's all some big mafia run human trafficking ring or something.


Yes, Google is constantly making updates that should prevent poor quality content from ranking highly. That is exactly why brokers want good writers. Who ever it is that you think is being 'anal retentive' and 'hyper critical' probably isn't doing it to get out of hiring you because the vacancy you trialled for didn't exist, they are trying to ensure they only hire people who won't deliver 'shit content' so their clients aren't penalized in the very way you are talking about. If they crtiticize your writing it's to give you a chance to do better – if they just wanted to get rid of you they'd just tell you your work wasn't what they were looking for (after all, nobody is under any legal obligation to continue hiring a freelancer, as long as they pay for any work delivered as agreed in a paid trial. I'm not sure what you think you've taken people to court for or, even more bizarrely, had people arrested for, but 'not hiring me again because they said my work wasn't very good' isn't grounds for a court case). If your work reads like this post, I am not surprised you receive criticism – from a technical perspective it's not very good, and evidently when you are left to write using your own ideas, the ideas just sound batshit insane.

 

Thanks for validating just about every point I've made. I've obviously hit a nerve or two that set your bloomers on fire. This is a message board not a news service. The links I've posted back me up. Your limited attempts ad nullification lets me know I'm on the right track as well as a good amount of support emails I've received from people who agree but are afraid to speak up.

I've been writing long before you were born, and have fought many a criminal while you were still playing in the mud making Barbie accessories.

You're going to have to learn you'll have to take people to court now and then. Every time you win a good cause it protects numerous other people. Sorry if it goes against the grain of your coffee cafe elite pals.

I can back my accolades up. From authors you wished your shadow's ass could follow. Peabody Award winners, Pulitzer winners and nominees, former head of the WGA, two of the best writers ever in fantasy, sci-fi, comics, and hundreds of people in journalism and publishing. If my writing was that bad I'd never have been hired and lasted so long.

You speak of technical. Writing isn't all about technicalities. People who have their head up their asses about the technical structure are often people who are just being professional, but far too much, they're people who can't think outside the box in life and couldn't write prose nor be intrinsic enough to stand out in a crowd.

Sound familiar?

I'm quite aware what brokers do. I'm talking about the dishonest ones. Clients need pro level service, but far too often the barrel is full of rotten apples. If trouble has evaded you so far in life in business, good for you. Thus you being an expert, have examples of your published commercial works. I'm not talking about your friend or client's blog in the travel or mobile niche, but products that have or are on the market mainstream, and have been so for more than 5 years? Lemme see 'em. C'mon. Prove it. Other than that, let's give my post time to perculate and see if I'm batshit crazy or you're asscrack psychotic.

 

OK, well, I think this may end up being a long reply so I can address all the crazy one point at a time.


At first, I think the thing that baffled me most was why you think I have 'coffee cafe elite pals' (also isn't calling it a 'coffee cafe' a bit redundant?). Then I realized I haven't updated my Digital Point profile in a long time and it still says I live in Seattle, which I'll grant you, is full of that kind of person. I only lived there for two years: I'm originally from London, and I now live in Bologna, Italy, so the assumptions you made based on my location at the time I set up my account go some way towards indicating that you love jumping to conclusions based on very little information.


This explains a few other things, like why you thought your post 'struck a nerve' – actually it didn't, because I'm not a broker – I dabbled in it a few times when I had some opportunities I couldn't deliver on my own, so I know how much work it can be, and I work with some very good brokers who I respect and who have helped me achieve the kind of success in the content writing industry that means I am reliably making good money from what I do and don't have to come on here hawking my services for a cent a word anymore. You do. Perhaps that's because of your attitude (obviously I've done some research since your reply and, well, you don't exactly leave your clients delighted, do you?), or perhaps because your writing gives people a headache on account of reading like the diaries of a mad man. Let's take a look at this sentence, shall we?


'I've been writing long before you were born, and have fought many a criminal while you were still playing in the mud making Barbie accessories.'


OK, well, I was born in 1983. I know from my research into you that you have indeed been writing since before I was born, though evidently that still hasn't been long enough for you to be able to write this sentence with the right tenses. The snarky ending to the sentence also doesn't work – children don't make Barbie accessories out of mud, do they? It's like you're trying to be witty but it's just coming out as confusing. It fails on both the technical and the creative levels.


Maybe if you were a famous novelist like your friends you'd have an editor who could fix all that stuff but for copywriting jobs, your natural writing is going to be criticized for things like that, and you need to deal with that and accept that it's your own failing, not the 'anal retentiveness' of your clients. Perhaps consider that instead of getting butthurt and threatening to sue. It looks childish when Trump does it, it looks childish when you do it. Although, if you are, as you come across, someone with some kind of narcissistic personality disorder, of course you're never going to entertain the idea it could be anything but someone else's fault if your work isn't accepted.


Also, if you want to work online, most people are going to be younger than you – both the people hiring and the people you're competing against. Patronizing us doesn't 'put us in our place' or whatever you might think you're doing, it just makes you sound like you're bitter and out of touch, and us terrible millennials simply laugh about it, and then we don't hire you. Try being a bit more humble instead of assuming you automatically know better than everyone else, including your clients, and maybe one of them might hire you more than once. Again, not necessarily possible if you are indeed some kind of narcissist, but hey, worth a try.


Equally, just knowing some credible writers doesn't mean they endorse your skills. I've looked you up and the only interesting thing I can find that has your name on it is all that weird stuff you wrote about how you saw UFOs in the '80s and the government covered it up. I said in my original reply that you sounded like a conspiracy theorist (you know, because you think Interpol are busy rounding up and imprisoning web content brokers who don't want to hire you, and that you have some kind of Batman-esque role in cleaning up the horribly corrupt world of copywriting), but I never imagined how right I was… I mean it's weird, isn't it, that there weren't any comments from people who remember seeing those spaceships? That of all those thousands of witnesses, only you, the sci-fi lover, is willing to say they remembered it happening? I love anime – would you believe me if I said I had magical girl powers given to me by a talking cat?


No, really Greg, nobody thinks you're batshit insane at all.


Oh, and as a final point, I know the person who wrote the bottom one of the links you posted to support your claim that Google's preference for longer articles mean we'll all be out of a job soon – and the broker involved. I guess you can't think the content those types of blogs provide is that terrible and worthless if it supports your own point... Of course, I can find just as many articles saying that video content accompanied by short text articles is the best approach to getting good Google rankings – there are different theories and techniques and really, unless you are selling yourself as an SEO consultant, your clients aren't interested in why you think the ones they've chosen are wrong. Jesus wept, just stop being such a massive wanker and maybe you'll find a place in this industry before you retire.


And as a final, final point, nah, I'm not going to list my 'accolades' for you – you're not hiring (and I wouldn't work for someone with your disposition anyway), so why would I bother trying to impress you? To get into a pissing contest with an old man who can't even get hired for a cheap guest post writing job? There's really no way of coming out a winner in that one.

 

Thanks for the piss poor investigation and assessment of me. Shows me the analytical skills of a Play-Doh aficionado.

As for UFOs, I've been researching the subject and doing the science for decades. You would be surprised at the history of the subject, the courageous pilots, war veterans, scientists, who've all had apart in the phenom. Some call the subject batshit because they're limited to the 'ETH' or
'Extraterrestrial Hypothesis', that SOME UFOs are of extraterrestrial origin. Too bad the public doesn't realize it was the U.S. Government that invented that hypothesis that solid proof has not been presented to the public as of yet. If the subject bothers you, get off your butt and study. There are millions of files from dozens of countries regarding the subject.

You forgot about pen names.

Popular writers I'd mentioned all wrote about me. Not just an association. Had you done even a minimal job of research using real cognitive skills attributed to homo sapiens sapiens, you would have seen a full page endorsement from one of the greates writers in comics. Yet you didn't see that. It's smack dab on the front page of one of my sites along with copies of my books and the toy line established on the property.

You didn't see that, because you didn't want to. You've got a bug in your bonnet because I did hit a nerve. There are phenomena in psychology which you've displayed from the start. You can bet I won't be sitting next to you in school.

Sorry you're jealous or hiding something. You extrapolated a problem where there wasn't one and your true intention, intellect, and lack of commercial talent have been exposed.

Bottom line is, you're scared your livelihood is in jeopardy because you've engaged in cheap, hustler tactics. I hit that nerve. I'll now sit back and wait to see the writhing in agony from disappointed clients and so on.

 

I don't know, as long as this industry exists people will be stealing content from each other. It's true for every industry. There's probably not a single song out there that has not been stolen (artfully changed / re-written) from someone else. There are a few exceptions, of course. So, to dream that some day "cheap copywriting" will be done away with is unrealistic.

 

You are sooooo spot on! It is next to impossible to stop copyright and trademark infringement, however, computing may soon be the answer as well as new laws that President Trump is stating he'll initiate. China is the worst. They have no morals whatsover and ethics out the window. Even if you're from a major corporation, you will be ripped off in China for millions. It's an unfair trade imbalance and too much of our time is in tracking down and remedying the effect of organized crime. That's what I was pointing out in my original post that the young lady couldn't comprehend. I've worked in and around law, law enforcement my entire adult life. Resources are slim and manpower limited. China won't comply. Did you know that just a single valuable product, honestly marketed and distributed in China can make you a millionaire overnight? That's how much in revenue we lose to China alone.

Only advances in computer algorithms will be able to hunt down and find the websites, and allow for the location and apprehension of the culprits, but if government and law enforcement won't cooperate, we need a system that auto-sanctions that criminal government's revenue. China has no honor. They have attitude blaming us for their problems when it wasn't us who killed 300 million of them during the 20th Century during their cultural revolution and 'Great Leap Forward' where those morons told farmers not to grow food but to make steel for sale. Close to 100 million died in a few years and is being recognized as the largest mass cannibalism even in human history.

Some people do crime because they're irresponsible, others do it because they have a gun to their head or worse, blackmail. It's got to stop especially in India, Africa, Pakistan, China and S. America.

 

Well, I'm only continuing with this because you keep coming out with such comedy gold that I can't help myself, but OK, you got me, I only Googled you briefly on my phone while I was playing video games. I'm not that interested in you that I'm going to go all Girl With The Dragon Tattoo over it on a Saturday night. Oh, did you mean the Neil Gaiman thing? I saw you illustrated some comics years back that used some old IP of his but weren't actually written by him and got terrible reviews, if that's the thing you mean, but we weren't talking about your illustrations, so I didn't bother to pursue that. They're probably fine, I don't know, I'm really more of a manga person as I said, so I'm not really able to judge.


I didn't forget about pen names either (with a name as common as mine, how could I?), but again, for the purposes of this discussion about professional ethics in copywriting, it doesn't actually matter what you've written, you were bemoaning the fact people won't hire you or don't pay as much as you'd like – if you were secretly George RR Martin I doubt you'd be whining about such things (or you might, seems like he'll basically do anything to avoid actually finishing the next book… But anyway, I digress).


Regarding UFOs, I'm sure I don't know as much about the science around that subject as you do. In any case, I didn't present any opinion on the existence of UFOs (I can't even say that I really have one), just that I found it odd that none of the witnesses (of which you claim there are thousands) were willing to confirm what you say you all saw, and the well known phenomena that it is always the people most interested in extraterrestrials that think they've seen evidence of them.


So, again, i'm going to have to disabuse you of the whole 'you struck a nerve thing'. I actually do very little SEO content writing these days. I've done jobs in the last couple of weeks that involved writing internal content for a commercial site (that is a household name here in Europe), editing a paper for a peer reviewed science journal (it wasn't about UFOs, so don't get excited), and writing parts of dialogue for an AI system. Other than the science paper, I got those jobs through a broker who also deals with guest posting, so nobody is putting all their eggs in that basket. I'm happy to write content for guest posting purposes too, but it's not my bread and butter, so if the industry changes in a way that will make it less easy to work on that kind of stuff, I'll be just fine (or if the shit really hits the fan, I could just go back to my previous career). I'm not concerned about anything you predict will happen, and in fact only even saw your post because someone told me to take a look at it because it reminded them of a similar conversation we'd been having about 'tinfoil hat types' after something we saw on Facebook yesterday (a conspiracy theory about Rogue One being made to turn people against white Americans, or somesuch nonsense). Seriously, you're giving yourself and your post far too much credit if you thought I read that and started arguing with it because I'm worried – I'm about as worried about that as I am about chem trails.


Anyway, come on then, do more stuff about how I'm really dumb – we're all loving those bits.

 

I was currently on another forum who vaguely went over this but I can say as I read through this post I got some very good clarification! Great post man good stuff.

 

Love this post! So true! It's the same thing when it comes to publishing books of any kind. People seem to want to cheap out and churn 'em out quickly without any proper writing, editing, proofreading, et cetera. What they don't seem to realize (or want to acknowledge) is that they are competing against thousands of books in the same genre as their own, and many of those books have been professionally produced by traditional trade publishers. If you want to stand out as an industry expert in your field, then you have to put the proper effort into your writing and book publishing.

This was an excellent post, Greg. Way to tell it like it is!

 

Actually the old days of content marketing are coming back on Google as sweeper CEO from India Sundar Pichai is going to be fired anytime this year or next year as far I think. He is the reason behind slow release of Android 8 and 9 version Operating System worldwide. He did Engineering from IIT somewhere in India and a big idiots like Sundar Pichai gets passed from this Institute based on copying entire answers from books when in the Exams itself.
Watch yourself same thing in 3 Idiots movie released few years back.