The Once Popular & Effective Article Directories as an SEO Technique Can Harm Your Site
Article directories were once the focus of many companies that wanted to bring their site to the top of the search engines. In addition to content for websites, they would hire article writers who would use these search engine optimization tools to share information with readers and increase the exposure a business could get online. However, the days of these article directories is behind us, much like other SEO tactics, such as older link building practices and keyword stuffing. Today, using an article directory can actually harm your site.
Poor Quality is Typical
If you’ve ever looked at the articles present on article directories, you likely encountered a lot of low-quality articles. Even if you hire SEO content writers to create articles to post on these sites, chances are they won’t receive a lot of traffic because Internet users expect lower quality. In addition, the search engines have penalized many sites that consistently offered low quality writing. For this reason, an article posted to an article directory won’t reflect positively on your business and isn’t likely to generate the increased traffic you’re looking for. Your efforts are better spent elsewhere, such as on your own blog.
Duplicate Content Is Not Good
Some companies would post an article to their own website and then submit it to an article directory as well. This would create duplicate content that not only hurt the reputation of the article directory, but also caused the original website to suffer from the negative effects of duplicate content. In addition, many article directories allow users to take the content they find and use it on their own websites, creating even more duplicate content. Article writers today understand the detrimental impact of duplicate content, which makes posting to an article directory a dangerous rick.
Excessive Linking Isn’t Effective
One of the oldest search engine optimization tools involved link building. For many SEO content writers, this meant including as many links as possible to drive traffic to other desired webpages. Unfortunately, this practice led to writers using links that weren’t relevant to the content, which made many readers unsatisfied with the end result. When customers are constantly taken away from your page, they aren’t likely to return. Article directories encouraged this practice. Today, links are still an important element of SEO, but it’s necessary to keep them to a minimum and ensure they are relevant.
There Are Better Places
Article directories are no longer the best place to put your content to ensure it gets noticed. SEO is constantly evolving, which means there are now better places you should focus on when you create content for websites. Not only should you make sure your website is full of quality content, but you should also consider becoming a guest blogger for someone who is relevant to your industry. The goal is to make sure everywhere you post your content is relevant to your business in some way. General blogs that accept topics on a variety of subjects are less likely to be noticed by the search engines.
It’s a Waste of Time and Money
Article directories are a major waste of your time and money, both resources that are critical to the success of your business. You will either need to hire SEO content writers to make sure you create quality content for an article directory or you will spend less on low-quality writers with less return on your investment. In either case, you are better off creating a steady flow of content for your own blog to ensure a steady flow of traffic and better search engine results.
Over the years, there have been many search engine optimization tools designed to help businesses put their name at the top of the search engines. However, many of these techniques didn’t last for the long term. One of these practices is the use of article directories. Creating and posting content to these sites is no longer the SEO booster they once were. For this reason, it’s more important for businesses to find better ways to share information with their readers, all while driving more traffic to their website.
If you’re looking for article writers to help you create quality content for your website and blog, contact us. We can provide the valuable services you need to improve your search rankings.
