Content Caboodle Blog

Growing Pains

Posted by Editing Staff

In case you didn’t notice, we issued an announcement here back on May 30th, 2010, that we had reached the 10,000 Registered and Contributing Members point. That was a special day for us, because we’ve been working hard since launching Content Caboodle all the way back in 2007 to build an environment that was friendly and rewarding for authors, and reaching that level of participation was a validation to our efforts over the last three years.

Just four months later now, we currently have 16,774 registered and contributing members. That’s an increase of over 675% in the last four months.

We’re delighted over this incredible growth, however it has caused us some minor growing pains that we wanted to discuss openly, and explain what we’re doing about them so that you know any recent changes or degradation in the service that you may have noticed are going to be very short-term and we will have everything back on-track and on schedule very soon.

The first and most obvious issue has been a slow down in submission reviews. With so many more contributors comes a lot more daily article submissions, and we honestly weren’t prepared for such a dramatic growth spurt.

We have now brought on seven new associate editors. The first four completed their training yesterday (Oct. 1, 2010) and will begin reviewing live articles on Monday, Oct. 4th.

The remaining three all begin their training on the 4th. The training course we have is an intensive week long learning process, so they will be ready to begin reviewing live articles on Monday, Oct. 11th.

Based on the number of articles per day each editor is expected to review, we calculated that we would need four more editors to keep up with the new levels of daily submissions. We decided to bring on seven right away so that we could also clear the current backlog of articles waiting to be reviewed, and become ahead of the curve as our growth continues to avoid future backups.

Another issue you may have noticed (many of you have contacted us about it now) is that on author’s profile pages the total number of Page Views being displayed is inaccurate if you have more than 50 published articles with us.

This is a glitch in the programming that happened when we updated our site design, however it has not affected author’s payouts and we do have the accurate totals for every author’s Page Views on record in our management system.

What’s happening with this glitch is that our site only displays the most recent 50 articles that any author has published on their profile page, and instead of displaying the author’s total Page View tally, the page is only displaying the total Page Views from the 50 displayed articles on the page; which is why this only affects authors with more than 50 published articles.

The reason we haven’t corrected this yet, despite knowing what the problem is, is simply that our web programmer is also a part-time editor with us, and recently we’ve had him working full time as an editor to help with the increased submission rates.

The Page Views display is a minor annoyance, but doesn’t have any major impact on the service so we have felt his time was better spent continuing to review articles for authors until we could get our new editors trained and working on live articles.

With the four new editors joining the team this week, we will be able to get him on this issue and it should be corrected in a few days.

There have been some other minor things here and there as a result of our sudden growth, much of it affecting what goes on behind the scenes for us, such as editors working more overtime than they really ever should to try and keep up with the volumes.

By no means am I (or are any of us) complaining about any of this. It’s a wonderful thing to see the fruits of your labor suddenly flurishing. We simply wanted to make you aware of what was going on currently, and what was being done about it, so that you would know we will be back to normal shortly.

We truly appreciate the participation and support we’ve received from our community of authors, and I hope that shows in the amount of extra work and hours everyone here has been providing to ensure the service didn’t fall too far behind.

We also apologize to all for the backups which have occurred, and hope you won’t hold it against us going forward. Given our history, this recent growth spurt of 675% in four months was completely unexpected and we were caught with our pants down. We have addressed it as quickly as we could and have taken measures to ensure in the future we can get new editors on-board and trained in a much more efficient manner and shorter amount of time to avoid this happening again.

Technorati Tags: backups, growth

Posted in General Interest |

Article Marketing Isn’t Free Traffic – But It’s Quality Traffic When Done Right!

Posted by Scott Bannon

I often see people tweeting or blogging about how article marketing is a free way to get traffic, and it always makes me cringe just a little.

Sure, you can write and publish an article online without paying a penny, but to create a quality article requires at-least a modest investment of time for the researching and writing–and isn’t your time worth something? So, for that reason I think it’s misleading and unfair to describe article marketing as “free” traffic.

Perhaps it would be better if everyone started referring to article marketing as an easy source of “premium” or “great” traffic, because that’s where article marketing really shines when you do it right.

With just a few paragraphs of well written and crafted words you can pull in boat-loads of highly targeted, quality traffic.

To demonstrate just how valuable the traffic can be with article marketing, let’s look at an actual example from Content Caboodle. Here is a screenshot from an article published on our site:

Notice that I’ve highlighted the first link from the resource box. The anchor text of that link is “printer cartridges” and this specific link has been clicked hundreds of times by visitors to this article page. I know the actual number of clicks the link has received, but without the actual author’s permission it would be wrong to disclose that here, so we’ll stick with the general and generic “hundreds of clicks” for the sake of this posting.

Now, lets look at the average CPC (cost per click) that Google charges for that particular term:

$6.31 per click. Now, of course that reflects the cost when bidding in Google’s search network more than from content page displays, but even still you can easily estimate that it’s going to cost you over $1 per click for that term even in the content network. You could bid less than $1, but I doubt your ad would ever get displayed if you did.

So, at a minimum of $1 per click in value, and with hundreds of clicks to that link, it’s easy to see just how valuable article marketing can be when done right.

And just by the way, this specific article has a 2nd link in the resource box as well with a different anchor text term, and though it hasn’t received as many clicks as the first link, it has received hundreds of clicks to date too.

The key to this article’s success is that the author spent a little time to create a very good and engaging piece of content that naturally guides readers from the article body to his resource box links.

Article marketing is easy, and it’s a great (but not exactly free) way to grab premium traffic, if you do it right and give quality content then you will get quality returns.

Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, article writing, engagement

Posted in Article Marketing | 4 Comments »

We Don’t SPAM – So Why Did Someone Get Our Mailing After Unsubscribing?

Posted by Editing Staff

As you know, we send out occasional mailings to our registered authors, and even though we need to mail you when your article submission(s) are approved or declined, we do offer you the ability to not receive our infrequent mailings with news and announcements.

So, if you have unsubscribed from our news and announcements mailing list, why might you have still received our latest mailing?

This question was asked of us by an author today after we sent an announcement mailing this morning. He was understandably upset at having received email from our list mailing after he had unsubscribed from the list several months ago, and accused us of forcing SPAM upon him.

So, what happened?

Well, it turns out that at some point in the past few months this author tried to login to submit a new article and couldn’t remember his account details, and instead of having them sent to him through our web form, he just went ahead and created a new author’s account…and BINGO, as a newly registered author with an account that hadn’t unsubscribed from our mailings or requested not to receive them, he was added to our Author’s eMail List and received our latest announcement.

I Told You We Don’t Send SPAM

There was a similar case in the past where it turned out that a marketer had created multiple accounts to keep their niches/markets separate, and then unsubscribed from our mailings with some but not all of their multiple accounts, resulting in some of their addresses still being subscribed and receiving our news and announcements.

The bottom line is we do not force anybody to receive our mailings, and we respect your wishes on email contacts…when you make them clear to us.

If you have received our announcements after unsubscribing from our email list, please check your account(s) to ensure that there isn’t some simple error or oversight like I’ve described above that might explain it.

The member who emailed us this morning and accused us of forcing SPAM on him felt pretty bad about his angry email tone after realizing it was his own actions which caused him to receive our mailing again. He had no reason to feel bad, and we’re happy that we could clear the issue up for him so quickly; hopefully this blog posting will help others avoid the same problem.

But More Important

Why wouldn’t you want to receive our news and announcement mailings?

It’s not like we send them often and clog up your Inbox. We sent one this morning, and the last one went out way back in January…that’s not abusive nor intrusive at all, is it?

And we don’t send out a bunch of fluff or pointless dribble when we do send an announcement. We only contact you when there’s a very good reason to, with very big news to report or special offers of our service that we don’t announce publicly.

So, think about it before unsubscribing because you may just miss out on some great new features or opportunities with us here at Content Caboodle if you do.

If you have unsubscribed in the past but would like to receive our infrequent mailings once again, you can always re-subscribe here!

Technorati Tags: email, spam

Posted in General Interest |

Targeting Your Articles

Posted by Editing Staff

Earlier today we made the following post on twitter:

It didn’t take long for someone to jump on that and ask us if we were saying keywords don’t matter anymore and that keyword researching is useless.

That’s not what we said (or meant) at all.

Our point was that in the past it was enough to simply target some easy-to-medium keywords with articles and grab good search engine placements in a relatively short period of time.

That’s still possible, but the difference is those quick rankings no longer last for weeks or even days like they used to do.

The search engines have become so good and fast at updating and “dancing” content that now you’re lucky if that quick top 10 ranking piece lasts more than just a couple of hours.

So sure, it’s still easy to get a first page ranking for some obscure longtail keyword if you want to, but keeping your piece on the first page of search results for more than literally minutes has become an incredible amount of work.

And it isn’t necessary if you approach it differently.

Look at the changes that search engines have made over the years. If you watch what they do it becomes easy to see what they want…and it isn’t keyword rich content — It’s content rich content. It’s quality and authority content. It’s content that people are going to read/watch/listen-to and say to themselves “I’ve just found the go-to person on this topic”.

Authors who spend their time creating that kind of content instead of spending it scanning keyword lists for low lying fruit to chase are seeing much better results and returns for their efforts in our experience.

That’s what we meant with our tweet.

If you want to stay up to date with the facts and info we tweet about, just follow Content Caboodle on twitter.

Technorati Tags: authority, keywords, twitter

Posted in For Writers |

Help – I Can’t Submit Or Edit My Articles

Posted by Editing Staff

We get several email contacts per week with something like this in them: “Help, your system won’t let me submit or edit my articles”

Here’s the reason why this happens: You cheated!

It’s that simple. If your account is restricted from submitting or editing articles, that means one of our human editors found evidence that you were using some sort of software to submit or auto-submit machine-spun article garbage to us.

We don’t want articles that your software writes. If we wanted software written articles, we would use our own software to write crappy content and not offer to pay others for theirs.

Content Caboodle provides a valuable service to all users, from authors to publishers to the thousands of readers who visit our article pages each day.

Unlike most article publishing sites, we compensate authors for helping us to deliver a valuable service and quality user experience, so of course we take offense to authors who try to push spun-article garbage on us and our visitors.

If your account is suddenly restricted, here’s how that happened:

Every article submitted to Content Caboodle receives a real review by a human editor. If that editor believes there are indications of manipulation, auto-submission or machine-spun writing (s)he flags the article for a second review by one of our managing editors.

A managing editor will then review the article together with one of our software technicians. If they both agree that the article has violated our submission policies and the technician can verify that some form of software was used to create or spin the article, then that article and all other articles pending review by the same author are immediately declined and the author’s account is placed on Restricted status.

We do not take this action lightly. That is why we have the 2-tier review process that involves multiple editors and a software technician. We certainly don’t ever want to falsely place an author’s account on Restricted status, however once a determination is made it is final.

We do not ban authors, and you may still access your account to remove any prior articles that you may have published with us if you wish, but you will not be able to edit articles nor submit new ones ever again from your account.

There is no path to removing the Restricted status from an account.

Once we are certain that an author has attempted to circumvent our guidelines or devalue our service for visitors we no longer want their content submissions, period.

Our policies are not meant to be harsh, but to protect the value of the service for all who participate as authors, publishers, and readers.

Posted in General Interest | 2 Comments »

Engagement Marketing – A Perfect Format

Posted by Scott Bannon

If you’re struggling with writing articles or getting your article marketing to show returns this will be highly beneficial for you.

I don’t normally post here, I’m more of the “operations” guy behind the scenes with Content Caboodle; but I spend a lot of time reading almost all of the articles that get published on this site (I’m an information junkie) and something I saw this week literally triggered a lightbulb moment for me, you know, when the lightbulb flashes over your head like in cartoons…and I decided immediately that I wanted to share this with the contributing writers here as a way to make what you’re doing better and easier for you.

Article marketing is a tricky craft. The system is simple, write articles and then publish them everywhere you can to get the maximum exposure for your resource box call-to-action link(s).

Being such a simple system, it leads to a lot of people trying it, typically with very mixed results because they haven’t studied the mechanics behind the craft of writing an article that will entice a reader to take action.

I call it a craft because that’s exactly what it is. It isn’t hard to do or learn, but it’s a vital ingredient if you want to have real success with your articles.

It’s easy to write a couple hundred words on any topic, but if you haven’t crafted those words properly to engage and entice your readers than your message isn’t going to be memorable and those words aren’t going to be working for you or your business at all. They may be informative, but informative alone doesn’t translate into memorable or action from readers.

So, how do you take your words and craft them into something more memorable or that will entice action from your readers?

There are a lot of ways to do it, but one I saw this week when my monthly National Geographic arrived was very impressive and can serve as a great starting point for writers looking to improve their article marketing craft.

Right on page #2 of this latest issue of National Geographic (August 2010), opposite the Index page, is what on first glance appears to be a single-page feature on Cuban Iguanas. A well targeted story for Nat-Geo readers, right?

I didn’t want to step on any toes nor break any laws by scanning the actual page, so here’s a design representation of the layout of the single-page piece:

Now, let me break it down for you:

Single-Page Title: “Wildlife As Canon Sees It” (Canon runs similar engaging ads in every issue of Nat-Geo and has older ones online for viewing at http://www.canon.com/environment/report/wildlife.html if you want to see actual examples of what I’m describing)

Purple Block: a single paragraph of encyclopedia-style description of the Cuban Iguana, giving the necessary specifics on the species and letting readers know what the piece is about

Orange Block: a large, stunning picture of a Cuban Iguana

Two Blue Blocks: a couple paragraphs of conversational-style text covering the traits and life of Cuban Iguanas, followed by a short paragraph on how Canon “sees” the importance of making the world a better place, partly by raising awareness of endangered species (with the implication being it’s easier to raise awareness when you can put a face on the problem, even an Iguana’s face). And concluding with a URL to http://www.canon.com/environment

Red Block: The Canon logo

Okay, now this is a print media piece, so there are a few differences from online content that I’ll go over, but for the most part what Canon has done is create a great article that highlights their product line while engaging the reader on a level and topic that’s important to them.

The “tricky” part, or what I call the “craft” in this is that Canon doesn’t ever mention their products. The word camera never appears in the piece at all.

Instead, what they did is create a piece of informative and entertaining content that highlights what their products do in a way that will connect with the target readers of the magazine the content appears in.

To translate that into a process that could be used online for article writers/marketers, you would first zero in on your target reader by using a title and keywords that will grab their attention.

Next, create a piece of content that doesn’t openly sell anything, but rather highlights the features or benefits of what you want to promote while informing and/or entertaining readers.

Finally, provide a call-to-action link in your resource box that doesn’t say “now I’m going to sell you something”, but rather says “go deeper into this topic here”. If you look at the link Canon uses in their piece, it isn’t “Canon.com/ORDER_HERE” but instead it is “Canon.com/environment” because even the link can make a connection to the target reader of Nat-Geo by including the keyword environment in it.

This is a perfectly formatted piece of “engagement marketing”. I like that term better than article marketing, or information marketing or entertainment marketing, because it can be any or all of those things.

This type of content creation works and can be applied to anything, product or service doesn’t matter, whatever you want to promote there’s a way to do it with engagement marketing and article writing.

For instance, if I wanted to promote a software program that lets users create musical beats, I wouldn’t talk about the software at all, I would write a piece about the fun of creating music and probably include a video (with audio) of someone young sitting at the computer and creating their own beats in just a few seconds (to highlight the ‘ease of use’ of the software as well as the musical capabilities) and hopefully looking very happy with their sounds playing back to them.

Since my real focus of the content is on how easy it is to have fun creating your own beats, my call-to-action would be to a special page on my site which was also intended to highlight that “it’s easy” to make music and have fun with my software, maybe including more videos or even user uploaded clips.

The point is, with engagement marketing you don’t have to “sell” the product or service at all. In fact, you want to avoid anything that could be perceived as selling.

Just highlight a feature or benefit your product/service provides, in a way that connects with your target reader on their own level. This builds interest after you’ve grabbed their attention, and once their interest tips over into desire through engagement they will take action to purchase (provided your site has a clear navigation system).

Give it a shot, try writing some engagement based content, include media if appropriate, and see how it works out for you. If you follow the examples above closely (but make them fit what you’re promoting) I bet you’ll be surprised with the results.

Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, article writing, engagement

Posted in For Writers |