Borrowing Articles for Your Blog? Read Them First!
Today’s mail was full of goofy things – one of them was from a service that sends links to blog posts.
The title for the first post said, in part, “Guiding Your Down the Path to Home Ownership.” That was strange enough – guiding your what down the path? Then, although the title indicated that the article was about real estate, the introductory paragraph was all about investing in jewelry. So, of course I was curious and had to see what this was about.
It turned out that the writer wanted to contrast investments in jewelry with investments in real estate. So far so good – that made some kind of sense. But then the article went on to say that real estate was booming, and that “We all know that the value of property never decreases.”
That was a wild statement to make at any time, but in 2010, when real estate prices across the U.S. have plummeted, it was ridiculous.
Upon further investigation, I found that the article had been written in January of 2008 – about the time that the real estate bubble burst.
Had the blog owner read this article before posting it, he or she would have recognized that the statements it contains are sadly out of date – and would hopefully have chosen something different to post.
Some subjects are “evergreen,” so it’s perfectly safe to post something written ten years ago. But when the subject is the economy, it isn’t safe.
Like it or not, your blog is a reflection of you. The people who read it will automatically assume that you are in agreement with the content you post. They may even mistakenly judge your competence by the typographical errors, poor grammar, and mis-used words in an article. So take the time to choose articles that are well-written.
In this case, the entire article didn’t make sense. It bounced around like a grasshopper, going from one subject to another. It held nothing of value for the reader.
You need to read every article before you post it, not just because you’ll be judged by the quality, but because the writer’s attitude and philosophy may be just the opposite of your own. It doesn’t matter that you put the author’s resource box at the end. Readers will still associate the article content with you.
You may be trying to increase your site optimization by posting one or more articles each day, but remember that you want to impress human readers, not just search engines.
If you’re subscribed to a service that posts articles automatically, pay attention to what time of day they’re posted, then check them as soon as possible. If you find an article like this one – out of date, poorly written, and making no sense – delete it. It’s better for your reputation to go a day with no blog posts than to post something that makes you look incompetent.
Of course, the best idea is to write your own blog posts. Then your readers can become acquainted with the real you, not just with your choice in articles.
Posted: August 8th, 2010 under blogging, marketing, web marketing.
Tags: blogging, marketing, web marketing