A Blog vs. Submitted Articles: Which is Better?

I write a monthly real estate newsletter for my client, ForeclosuresMass.

Each month I have to find real estate experts to interview on topics ranging from property management and rehabbing to marketing and financing.

Of course, the first place I begin my search is with Google. And, many of the top results for my search terms include articles submitted by “experts” to article submission sites.

After clicking through to these articles, however, I’ve learned that many times you can’t contact the people behind the articles. One day I spent close to two hours trying to track down an “expert” whose name was on all kinds of articles (which were actually rather well done).

Alas, I could not find him — not on any real estate Website, Facebook, LinkedIn, or via Google search on his name and town. I realized that his articles were simply a means to get people to his e-commerce site — and even then, you could not contact him. (Which then made me wonder what he was hiding.)

Suffice to say, I now skip over articles when they appear in the search results and have learned how to cherry pick the real experts — those that have real Websites that include contact information.

I bring up this topic because my last blog post, about saving money on translations, has garnered a number of comments. I wondered if the post is appearing for search terms. I checked, and yes, it’s at the top in Google for “saving money on translations” (I’ve seen it at #1 and #2).

The listing directly below it is to an article on the Ezine Articles site.

Those people who promote submitting articles to sites like Ezine Articles state that it helps you get top search engine listings. True enough.

However, a well-written blog and/or Website can get you the same results – with the additional benefit of driving people to content that resides on YOUR site versus content that resides with thousands of other “experts” on another site.

Having the same article appear on dozens of sites dilutes the value of the content as it’s no longer fresh or original. (And, I’ve found, too, that those blogs and ezines that re-use the content often don’t include links back to the author’s site/blog.)

The translation article in question does at least send people to a valid Website.

But don’t you think it would be better if the company included all kinds of optimized, educational content on its own Website or a blog — in the form of articles, reports, surveys, etc. — versus submitting it to article sites?

(I wonder, too, if Google won’t start cracking down on this duplicate content. Currently, you can find a “reprinted” article listed 3 – 5 times in the top 20 search results for a given search phrase. Is this duplication really helping people find the best information?)