Many webmasters I know might hire out Textbroker, or some form of writing service to bulk-up their site. SEO copywriters often get their starts now in these houses: they are burning and churning it out like never before.
I often get hired to mop-up the text that others keep spilling over the edges. In doing this tonight, I saw a place I might be able to help someone, specifically when you are looking at fixing some text you get from a mid-to-low level copywriter.
Why Lazy Content Is Risky
The issue with lazy content is, in time, oogleGay is going to get increasingly better at slicing-up what they are serving. Text that is creatively, thoughtfully, and intentionally delivered is one way we can stay ahead of them.
When you buy content in bulk from a low-cost/affordable text writing service, the writer you hire does not typically care at all about what they are writing. They are churning. Writers in these organizations get paid by producing legible bulk – so there is little inspiration to write something better when coherent-enough and faster-than earns you more.
It is all OK if the writer and the recipient reach agreeable terms, I am not trying to rock the boat here…but I am saying that most often, the recipient is left with something that is grammatically correct, but offering little more.
And the real point is, as the search engines improve, grammar on its own merit is not going to make the cut for long, if it works much at all for you the way it used to. You need flow. You need ideas. You need to keep those Pandas scrambling.
So when you are hiring-out your writing to get a good jump on something, know that you’ll eventually want to clean it up. Start looking for the telltale signs of lazy writing.
Finding Lazy Writing
This was a sentence in the page I was editing tonight (domain changed, just in case):
“[B]PigOinkyOinky.com has some mighty fine selections, with some very nice ones under $50[/B].” (Swear to Google, I only changed the domain here.)
The fact that they took the time to type out “mighty fine” rather than something else is almost admirable. Almost.
But to me, a sentence like this shows me that this is a typer, not a writer, and it shows they could not fill this idea with a vocabulary that made it seem effortless. Or fake it. They are stream-of-conciousnessing, but have nothing to say. They don’t care, nor did I reading it. They are getting paid by the keystroke, and it shows.
This type of stuff, when left alone, is going to struggle, if you ask me.
So is it workable?
Sure.
The post it came from had a single idea I could flesh-out – and I could see some lazy patterns in the writing pretty quickly, so just clipped them all out, and the rest wasn’t too bad.
For the sentence up there that made me see what I was dealing with on this page, I ended up with this:
“[B]PigOinkyOinky.com offers an affordable selection, with some very nice options under $50[/B].”
It says EXACTLY the same thing – just less knuckle-dragging. Standing on its own, it actually makes sense. The eyebrows separate. You get into 9th grade English class.
I used “very” as a modifier, because the target audience is a “Target-store” kind of shopper. Normally, I would work this out, for it is what I think of as weak writing…but it works here to flow with the audience expectations, and to keep the vernacular of the targeted group.
How I Identify “Lazy” Writing
As a guy who fixes this kind of stuff, what I look for are words or sentences that don’t make sense, and paragraphs that don’t carry an idea through from A-B logically. I cut out all the filler, and see what is left.
I try not to write more – I try to only cut or work out their mistakes. This is the key – you are typically cutting, not adding stuff during your edits. Many people get confused with that. But just because they gave you a 975-word page does not mean cutting this down to 300 awesomely stated, tight words would not do the same things for you.
Here’s a hint: It will help you more in the long term (and long tail) to edit harshly based on context, rather than trying to reap rewards from the extra padding of misplaced, “added-in” kind of words. The long tail needs an association of context to be effective, so meaning helps as much as the inclusion of keywords in many cases.
But really, to think that this kind of middling, lazy stuff is going to work for you in the search engines for long, when left as-is, seems kind of foolish to me.
I do think using this filler and low-rent forms of writing is a great way to get something moving – getting a site to age. But you have to fix it at some point, or it will likely NEVER go as far as you’d hoped.
I have seen ALL of the engines get increasingly better at identifying synonyms and related words, and trying to decipher meaning that is not tied so directly the empty chatter of repeated consonants and vowels. Use this to your advantage to improve the actual writing and meaning of the content – eliminate the stiff, SEO-keyword driven repetition that seems like it would work, but really doesn’t.
Don’t Stop with Fixing the Spelling Errors
So when you approach, and look to fix some lazy content, make sure you are thinking about it in terms of meaning and flow as well as the obvious sloppiness inherent in the execution. If you clean it up from a conceptual as well as a mechanical perspective, you are going to better position your site’s content to withstand the algorithm changes sure to be coming soon.
I just back from a trip to Hilton Head island (on the South Carolina Coast) where a shark fishing morning clearly showed me that shark fishing is exactly like online marketing.
Really.
It has nothing at all to do with me wanting to talk more about shark fishing. 🙂
Gear-up for the Local Conditions
I live in Atlanta, so I don’t fish off the Atlantic coast too often. However, I have been there before, and it helped me know what gear I needed to bring this time.
Last time I went to Hilton Head, I didn’t know what I needed so brought a lot of tackle. Very touristy. I lugged my big tackle box down with me to the beach every day, but never really pulled anything out of it. I was actually only using the same basic set-up all day, and just throwing cut bait.
All the lugging did for me, was compromise all the lures and gear in my tackle box. I got sand in everything and the sun just beat down on it mercilessly every day, for no good reason. A lot of undue stress and wear-and-tear on stuff I wasn’t even using.
On this trip, I learned from my previous mistakes. I went through my tackle ahead of time, and pulled out only the weights, hooks and steel leaders I would need. I took a bait knife, to cut the squid. I took a pliers, to pull hooks from shark jaws. I even took WD40 this time because last year, my pliers got corroded in the salt air and made it tough to open them. I didn’t like the alternative, of using my hands to take the hook out, so keeping the pliers functional was a must. I put in a couple hand towels, because even without reaching into sharks’ mouths like a hero, it always gets really messy. Flashlights, sun block and bug spray and some extra line. I put all this stuff in two ziplock bags, then put the ziplocks in a nylon bag and left my tackle box at home.
I had one salt water rig (pole and reel), so I got new line for it (20 pound test) and oiled it up. Got it working well, with a full spool of new line to get me through the week.
In a word, I was prepared with specific gear for this specific trip. The kitchen sink stayed home.
Based on what I encountered before in Hilton Head, I knew this time around what I needed to increase my chances for success. I cut out the extra, and made sure my stuff-to-be-schlepped was efficiently considered. I hit the beach with only what I needed, all of it well protected from damage in the sun.
Use Experience to Reduce Investments
I knew from the last time I was fishing here that I could throw cut squid into the surf, and likely catch some sharks. I had learned how to cut the squid and get it to stay on the hook from a guide we hired on the last trip. I knew one bag of frozen squid would last us all week unless the fishing was crazy good. On the last trip, I bought way too much squid and had to give away bags of it when we left.
I also got some frozen shrimp this time, because I know from experience in Florida that shrimp are pretty much a go-to bait in any body of saltwater. I had never used them here, but figured they would be a decent bait to try if the squid was not being effective. Figured they might get us smaller fish we could use as cut bait.
I was able to use the money I saved on excess squid to pay for the shrimp, and still paid less overall than I did last year for bait, for fishing a couple more days this year with more people.
My experience allowed me to reduce the investment without affecting the number of casts I could throw. Actually, because they were headless, the shrimp proved to be harder to keep on the hook than the squid (plus, small fish nibbled them down)…so I had even more casts than I anticipated – but spent less to get them.
This year, I also knew a party boat would not give me the fishing experience I wanted. Last year, I hooked into a 6-7 foot shark on a party boat, but the gear on these boats is made for people who don’t fish – I found it frustrating, and pretty dopey. Like using a telephone pole and cables to reel in a car.
I wanted to catch, fight and feel the power of a big fish – that was why I liked catching these things. Spending the extra money to get out a bit (like party boats) certainly increased my chances of catching some different things (and we did) – but I was content to stick to surf casting this year, using gear I knew would offer me a richer experience should it prove effective. The extra money saved from the party boat was spent on a couple dinners in some nice restaurants. And cupcakes – found a place that made only cupcakes: amazingly wonderful. I swear the éclair one they served as a Thursday special was like making-out with Heaven.
Overall, I spent considerably less money to be fishing much more often on this trip than I did on last year’s, with more people. Used the savings to increase more fishing opportunities and also to enjoy other, non-fishing vacation fun…let me repeat: they made ONLY cupcakes.
Be Willing to Adapt
Last year, when we were throwing squid out into the surf we caught little black tip shark pups – lots of them. It was on almost every cast for a while – just lots of little shark action over the whole trip.
This year, we didn’t catch any. Didn’t see that coming at all, and it took us all by surprise. No telling why – but there just weren’t bunches of little shark pups waiting to be caught this time, even though we were prepared. Despite the numbers and data to support otherwise, squid was falling flat.
The shrimp allowed us to catch some Whiting – which are little fish common on the shore – but even these were few and far between. Personally, I didn’t catch one, but my son and his friend Trey did. On the third one they landed, we used my bait knife to throw out pieces of the Whiting as cut bait. One piece I pitched out there got a decent hit, but nothing noteworthy.
As I stood there in the surf not catching anything but a tan, a man came down the beach and asked how I was doing. He said a guy down a ways had caught some huge Cobia over the last couple days. He was also surf casting like me and the boys, but he was taking the Whiting he caught, re-hooking them as bait and throwing them back out, live and whole. He said the Cobia came in an hour or two, every time…they always just grabbed the bait and ran and jumped and thrashed and eventually broke off – but it made me want one, real bad. All that running and jumping and thrashing sounded like exactly what we were after.
We had not been using the Whiting like this, and my cut bait approach was not getting results though it always worked in the past. Neither was the squid, even though last year, I couldn’t miss with pieces of cut squid. Nature: 2; previous experience: 0. The shrimp was working for the boys to catch Whiting though, so the next one Trey caught, he re-hooked like the guy suggested and threw it back out.
And in a little less than a hour, he yelled as the rod doubled over, and a 5-6 foot shark rolled. The shark jumped and thrashed violently, and the line broke. It was really exciting, but short-lived. Luckily, we all saw his fish, too, which made it better.
Let’s review here: none of the things I thought would work, worked. It did not make us stop fishing or anything, but it made us adjust what we were doing to increase the likelihood of success. Trey hooking into that monster was great – it made the day really exciting, and the fishing adrenaline go to full-boil.
But most importantly for me, there was now a method I could see that worked. Unfortunately, it seemed to require Trey or my son catching a Whiting for me since my fat, cupcake-filled butt couldn’t seem to catch anything at all. Even here though, I was willing to adapt.
Patience, Grasshopper…
We were on the island for a week, and fished almost every day there. This did not stop me from never catching anything – but I didn’t mind. I like fishing as much or sometimes even more than catching, so it works out well for me. And there were cupcakes.
But despite the achieved Zen and the delectable butter-creme frosting, on our last day, I secretly hoped I could do better. Little did I know, I would soon do much better than I had hoped.
We packed stuff, and then returned to the beach for one last morning before heading back to Atlanta. We spent a lovely morning there – but nary a nibble for hours on end.
Trey gave me a Whiting he eventually caught as our time wound down – turned out to be the only one of the day. We were running out of opportunities yet he was gracious enough to give me the lone baitfish so I might catch something. I was not too proud to accept it, either.
I put on a slightly longer steel leader (because Trey’s shark had broke-off on a smaller one) and a larger hook for the Whiting. I threw it out in the water, and went back to stand on the shore, hoping for something to end the week with. I thought Cobia, but was fine with anything.
In about 30 minutes, I felt the Whiting wake up, and start to swim frantically. I told the boys to watch, and reeled down the slack, lowering the tip of the rod. I yanked up to set the hook, hard. The rod doubled over, and I felt the weight of a very powerful fish as I tried to turn it around under water.
And it was on.
For the next 45 minutes or so, I wrestled with this big fish (safely from shore, of course).
He broke the surface more than a few times (so we saw it was a shark), but mostly just drove out. I would reel him back in, and he’d do it again, reel screaming-out line, the drag (and me) frantically holding on.
The rod I had made this really fun – as did the fact I had 20 pound test, while trying to land a fish easily over 90 pounds. If I tried too hard, I would lose it. I needed to keep playing it, gently, or the line would snap.
However, I did not count on my reel being grossly outmatched here – it took the brunt of the stress, and ended-up conking-out on me. I think the gears wore down in it – I got to a point at the end, and simply could not use it anymore…but it held.
Unfortunately for me, this was at a point when the shark was still a few hundred yards out in the surf. So I started backing up, pulling him into shore. I had to again move slowly, or I would accidentally break him off. But I had a clear path and it was low tide, so there was a bunch of beach behind me.
I ended up causing a bit of a fuss on the beach with all this commotion, and the Beach Patrol came to watch. I pulled the shark about 3 feet from shore (I was waaay back on the beach). He was exhausted, and I was too. But then I tried to yank him onto the sand, and I snapped the line.
People came up to me saying they were sorry I lost him after such a long fight – but I did not want to land the thing, really – I had no way to deal with a shark. I left all my tackle at home, and even with it, I had nothing to make a monster like that submit. I wasn’t going to eat him or anything, or keep him. I had tried to get him on shore, but had no idea what I would have done once he was there, so it was better this way.
Totally fine with me – he ruined my reel, and I gave him a workout to remember – figured we were even.
Even free from my line, he was dazed and tired for a few minutes, before he flipped tail and went back out to sea. He was OK, and would live to eat more Whiting.
The Beach Patrol came over and told us we couldn’t fish anymore that day, which was fine – we were leaving anyway, now a bit later than we had planned. (They don’t want you to catch sharks, which I respect.
Doesn’t stop them from being there though, and I am not trying to hurt them – just catch them for a little while if the Cobia are less willing to play.)
There was only about 10 yards left on the spent reel, which remain there today. I removed it, so it’s like a trophy for me. The rod held up like a champ so I’ll use it again, but I learned that next time, I need a stronger reel if I am going to go after these bigger fish.
Makes for a great memory anyway, and the trophy serves as proof. The reel was well worth the expense to me…and infinitely less expensive than even one seat on a party boat would have been.
Let’s think of this a little like my metaphor should imply.
I planned for success, based on something that had worked in the past. My plan did not work, despite being well budgeted and well implemented. Unwilling to bail, I adapted.
Current situations changed the viable and known tactics, and had I not adapted, I would have left (clutching my data) skunked.
I listened to what was happening around me, and acted on it.
I used the help of others when I could not do it all myself.
I traded the telephone pole and the cable deal for something more specific and meaningful, and ended-up with a fishing tale I will have forever. I pinpointed my approach, waited, and eventually connected in a very meaningful way.
If you do land a big one, expect the Beach Patrol to come and shut you down (cough *G-word* cough).
I’ll probably get down to Florida soon, so I’ll likely be able to figure out how other fishing is just like something else. Until then, feel free to give me a call and get me out on the water for some business advice…who knows what we’ll catch. Until then, swim carefully – especially if you look anything like a Whiting! 🙂
There is a great post Geordie wrote a couple weeks ago on PPCblog.com about building lifetime customer value. (in case my link doesn’t work, go ahead and paste this: http://ppcblog.com/building-lifetime-customer-value/)
I have talkedbefore about how much I like Geordie’s style of writing – he has a lot of great experience and knows how to get to the meat of making money, and staying profitable. Had the pleasure to co-write an article with him, and his technical deftness is also top-notch – but you’ll see that quickly.
This post comes soon after a huge shake-up for many online professionals, so I think it is particularly relevant and worth a read. When finding new customers is always going to present unique challenges, being able to serve more to the ones you already have is invaluable.
This post also shows you the kind of teaching/writing style Geordie uses. He is more personal inside the forums, but it is the same direct, no BS approach with suggestions you can really use. PPC is one online marketing oasis many webmasters are seeking as organic becomes even less predictable, so get on their membership waiting list. The community doesn’t appear to be accepting new members right now, but things always change. They maintain a limit, so it doesn’t get weak. I would put in your interest if this is something that appeals to you. I can talk from personal experience about how valuable I think this community is – in fact I have. Twice. 🙂
image borrowed from http://www.purposeinc.com/pwp/geordie-carswell
I don’t often talk directly about my clients here on the site, but I am working right now with some new folks who are training and selling bed bug sniffing dogs and thought it would be worth sharing some information on them. I think they’re doing some cool things anyway – so buckle-up, give it a gander and see what you think.
What is a Bedbug Dog?
I’ll be honest: when I first heard about this, I had no idea what to think…but I am learning. 🙂 I found out a bedbug dog is a dog that is specifically trained to sniff-out bedbugs. In the same manner that a dog might be trained to lead the blind, locate a cadaver buried in the woods, or find the pot stashed in your luggage, so to can they be trained to find these pesky little intruders.
A bedbug dog might be any number of breeds – though Labrador Retrievers and Beagles seem to be among the more popular choices. My new clients (the good people of ACES) tend to prefer labs for this work. ACES Master Trainer says that these dogs have a natural temperament and great disposition for this type of work. Trust me when I tell you their work ethic is pretty persuasive…but I love labs anyway, so had no reason to question this logic.
ACES looks for dogs from about 8 months old to 3 years old to select them for training. They personally vet the dogs to ensure they display some of the traits (obedience, intelligence, etc.) of the best workers – but not every dog makes a good bedbug dog.
How Do Bedbug Dogs “Work?”
ACES primarily serves hotels and the hospitality industry. However, residential folks also might call upon a service like this, if they have reason to believe they might have an issue.
Discreetly, the ACES team shows-up at the place being checked – the team being a minimum of a bedbug dog and its handler. The team will enter a room and systematically make sure that there are no live bedbugs in it anywhere – and that is one thing I thought was really cool…the dog’s ability to sniff out any problems (ignoring false positives) – even through a wall! The handler will lead the dog around the room, and if there is a scent of live bedbugs (be it in the bed, the carpet, the walls), the dog “Alerts” on it (sitting, or “pointing”) – signaling that the handler needs to perform a more detailed visual inspection. If the live bedbugs are found, then the room can be properly treated.
The bedbug dogs ACES uses could tell the difference between live bedbugs, and dead ones. ACES said the live ones have a scent that dead ones lose – so if a dog alerted to a pile of dead bugs, it would be because a live one has passed by numerous times, leaving the scented trail. But I saw the dogs completely ignore the dead stuff, but they did not miss the live ones. I think this is pretty cool – and from a hotel or homeowner’s perspective, dead bugs are nowhere near the issue that live ones are.
Who Buys Bedbug Dogs?
I learned that many pest control officers buy these dogs so they can offer more services to their customers. But interestingly, I also found out that many entrepreneurs also buy bedbug dogs, commit to training, and then open a business to offer the service. (that’s what the title of this post means) It is certainly becoming a more popular way to handle the growing bedbug problem, and more of the larger cities in the US are seeing the emergence of bedbug detection and treatment service providers.
The dogs I saw working were amazing animals: they were smart, happy, and extremely well disciplined. But they truly loved their work – they do it purely for reward (treats) and hearing “Good Boy!” when they do well.
Though the handler’s role is very important, ACES proved it was the dog doing everything by having a kid serve as handler, and the dog worked like a champ anyway – the normal handler was not leading the dog, or helping at all. The live bug were hidden in different places (once, next to a gasoline can to throw off the scent) but the ACES dogs found the live bedbugs every time.
Hope You Never Need a Bedbug Dog
While I was impressed by the way these dogs went to work and what they could do, I sincerely hope none of you ever need to call on ACES or a similar service to come and find the bedbugs in your home or establishment. Bedbugs are nasty little things, and their bites hurt. While it is best you never deal with them at all, if you do run into a problem it is a good thing these dogs are highly trained.
Bedbugs are not caused by a lack of cleanliness. One final thought before I move back into the exciting world of SEO copywriting as my motif, is that bedbugs have nothing at all to do with a room being clean or not – they are simply insects that travel a lot, and might hop a ride in your luggage or something, and set-up their home when they get to yours.
If you are dealing with a potential bedbug problem, ACES tells me the best thing is to get in there and treat it early. Don’t ever be ashamed or embarrassed (it’s not your fault) – be aggressive. Call ACES, and have one of their bedbug teams come out and see what they can find. Hopefully, nothing. But if a bedbug dog alerts, at least you are then on your way to finding the bedbugs and getting rid of them, once and for all.
**UPDATE**12/22/12
ACES had some changes since I initially wrote this post, and the food-driven aspects of bed bug dog training I talk about up there, are not the ones employed by their current senior trainer, Ray Figueroa.
Ray believes in toy training his bed bug dogs and after seeing the difference, I am a believer myself. Here’s a clip of Ray talking about how he selects bed bug dogs to become an ACES Lab:
With food trained dogs, they are driven by hunger while a toy drive dog seeks for toy rewards. I also saw all the food-drive dogs being led to the places they needed to seek – whereas, a toy-driven dog just runs his work all on his own…it is a huge difference in the way the animals work, very clear to see.
I shot a video of a dog at ACES doing a couple simple training exercises, but you can see it in how this dog works – there is serious drive, and focus going on here. Toys win!
ACES is offering bed bug dog services in the greater Atlanta area for bed bug detection, and selling toy-trained bed bug sniffing dogs to people all over the country. There are testimonials and videos of dogs in action on the site, so if you have a need for these specialized canines, I highly recommend ACES to you. Still. 🙂
Maybe you know about the trial happening right now for James Arthur Ray. He is on trial for 3 counts of manslaughter. Three people who believed in James Ray paid for it with their lives, and now it is time for the courts to decide if Ray is guilty.
I personally think James Arthur Ray is a cold-hearted manipulative monster, who actually led four people to die through his ignorance, greed and vanity…not just these three innocent victims (I will not forget what I see as his center role in the death of Colleen Conaway). I hope that justice is for once, swift, and this bastard pays with a life spent behind bars. It won’t even the score by any means – 4 good people will still be missing, and he won’t be – but I hope it does offer the families of his victims some form of relief, watching this beast get locked in the cage he deserves.
The trial started on March 1st, and is being offered in live video feeds and news streams. I was going to write something about it, but I am not as well informed as many people are on this matter – so I want you to go to them to learn more about it. My own thoughts on it are simple: guilty – lock him away forever. But there is of course, much more to it.
Visit the Salty Droid’s Blog
On the Salty Droid’s blog, Ray has been a topic of discussion since this whole thing started. Not only is the fake robot himself perpetually in a full-on attack to the monster known as “Death Ray,” but there are many very intelligent folks that have chimed-in along the way with additional background and evidence, as well as ongoing support for the victims’ families. These folks are now commenting on the trial and offering insight and links to help shed more light on it all. The comment thread is already over 650 strong, and it will continue growing as the trial continues.
The ‘droid has really created a great resource here for James Arthur Ray trial updates. Expect potty talk and lots of stirred-up passions. There are audio and video clips, he is doing day-by-day summary updates, and like I mentioned – the comments have some really interesting stuff too – some of those offering opinions are really super-sharp folks.
I applaud ‘droid for his work here, and in hammering on other assholes that take advantage of innocent believers. We need more fake robots, willing to take a stand. In the meantime, go catch-up on the JAR trial.
And I am sincerely looking forward to you rotting in Hell, James Arthur Ray. Can’t wait to watch you pay for what you’ve done.
Many webmasters I know might hire out Textbroker, or some form of writing service to bulk-up their site. SEO copywriters often get their starts now in these houses: they are burning and churning it out like never before.
I live in Atlanta, so I don’t fish off the Atlantic coast too often. However, I have been there before, and it helped me know what gear I needed to bring this time.
For the next 45 minutes or so, I wrestled with this big fish (safely from shore, of course).
However, I did not count on my reel being grossly outmatched here – it took the brunt of the stress, and ended-up conking-out on me. I think the gears wore down in it – I got to a point at the end, and simply could not use it anymore…but it held.
