New Feature Article and Link Bait Writing Service

Well surely you know what a feature article is but link bait? Link bait is an informational article that is written on general topics that dovetail nicely with your services. This article is then offered for free on the web as content for other website, ezines, newsletters, and blogs. The end-user must leave in your contact information and website URLs and links to use the article for free.

This is a great way to get one way in-bound links to your website and to improve your organic search position. We've been doing articles for a while now for clients, but have just now introduced this new service into our offering. So far for clients, we've had outstanding success with our quality articles being syndicated widely on the Web.

One of our hottest articles is Buyer Beware: Bed Bugs Can Squash Real Estate Deals. In only one week, the article has been syndicated on 48 different websites. Quality content will make all the difference in regards to who and how many people pick up your articles. I find that article writing is a great way to build additional authority and links which will benefit your website's organic position over time.

Writing Rights and Work For Hire

If you pay a writer to provide content for you, make sure you have the rights and license information spelled out in your contract. You may not own what you assume you own!

When you hire a writer to "Work for Hire", you own your content and in most cases you can use it any way you please for your website, blog, press releases, and feature articles. Some writers will restrict your use of their created content and license it only for specific uses. It is important to spell out your use rights as you will not always clearly own someone else's work even if you pay for it in full.

In our case, we do not "work for hire". We had a situation where a client took our created blog content and told us that they were creating a book which they intended to pass off as their own writing. Clearly we should have received acknowledgment as the writer and possibly even received royalties. Since that situation, we spell out in our letter of agreement for all writing that we license the content to you, but retain ownership. This will prevent unauthorized use of our work for purposes other than which it was intended.

Most writers have various rates for different types of writing and uses. We pay our writers one rate for blogs and another rate for articles, web content, and press releases. It is important to understand that assuming you own content clearly for whatever use you want needs to be nailed down in a written contract to prevent a copyright infringement. Remember the writer or firm which created the work owns the copyright, not you, unless you legally transfer it to you as part of the contracted payment in writing.

When you hire a writer, make sure you both clearly document ownership and intended use, it will prevent possible legal ramifications.

The New Trend Using Blog Posts to Build Website Content

I have to say that I am not in favor of doing this - using blog posts to build website content, and there are several reasons why.

1. The tone of writing in a blog post is casual in nature. Blogs are written almost in the same language as a spoken conversation.
2. Blog posts are not typically considered "unique content". Most blog posts are a commentary on something else that has appeared on the Web. Although the spin and actual writing may be unique in nature, for a website to build their content on this type of writing without significant additional authoritative research on their own topic is a concern.
3. There may be possible copyright infringement issues on blog post content for very high profile sites. When the entire content of a website is from blog posts which are commentary on other articles found on the web, the parent site may be setting itself up potentially for a copyright infringement suit. Especially if the site becomes very popular or has a very high profile.
4. Blogs typically heavily link to articles on the web and other websites. Numerous outbound links from the main content of as site is not an approach that we take in today's changing world of search engine optimization. A very judicious policy of outbound linking should be the normal practice for website's that are going after organic placement.

Clearly from a business stand point blog writing is usually cheaper - a whole lot cheaper - than employing a web copywriter to write website content and so we are seeing a rise in interest in using blog posts for website content. From my viewpoint, the potential legal problems and loss of authoritative message are not a good trade off for the money that might be saved on quality website content copywriting in the overall big picture.

Blog Content Writing

I have found that the most engaging style for blogging is in the first person. As we perform ghost blogging services for many clients nationwide, I've seen all type of client preferences.

Some clients want purely dry informational blogs, some want how to's, some want personal information and personal interest stories, and some want no links to their website and talk about their services.

From all the blogs I review and conferences with clients, I think that the best approach is good content with a gentle plus back to the owner's website once a week. The most engaging posts are the ones that offer something real - a point a view, a real tip and are not a redux of information that is posted somewhere else on the Web.

As a blog reader as well as a blog writer yes, you can over do selling yourself on your blog and turn people off, but you can occasionally point out the services that you provide and link back to your own website. That makes perfect sense.