Customer Service, ghost writer, Graphic Design General, honesty, Internet, Knock Offs, Large Format Graphics, Trade Show Displays, Uncategorized

Beware Blog Articles That Are Ghost Written

Is a graphic or trade show expert just a hired writer with no experience?

Blog article ghost writer
The Blog Article Ghost Writer

So the company or individual you do business with has written a blog article and you are excited to read it because you trust this entity. However, are you certain the article was actually written by the person/company in question? How can you tell?

As the Internet progresses to a constant marketing state due to changes in social media, search engine algorithms, and never ending system gaming, it becomes almost impossible to know who is an expert and who is buying/gaming results. Often you will find content that has a headline that seems interesting but you find the article is so terribly generic you learn nothing and wonder why you wasted your time. The world of blogs can be terribly frustrating. Every company seems to have a blog simply because they are told by “experts” that they need one. But who is generating this content?

Today you can purchase written blog articles online for as little as $5 per order. Most come from overseas and you will have to reword some of the content so it actually makes sense. But all you have to do to order these written articles is present a synopsis of your topic along with basic conversation points and a direction and the writer will spit out an article to the length of your choosing in as little as an hour. You could literally run a professional blog with Google Adwords advertising for as little as $5 to $10 a day but generate income far exceeding that total if the topic is one people will click to. But if you are looking for expert information it isn’t the type of blog you should ever read.

I know of several graphic design and trade show display blogs that are bogus in this regard. The content is posted several times a week with great headlines that suck you in and you think you are getting free information that is valuable. However, these blogs are just written by ghost writers overseas who know nothing about the topic at hand. Rather, the writer has a basic ability to construct written articles to a form given to them by the purchaser. In the end you, as the reader, are given canned information that could be attained anywhere else with a basic Google search but instead are fed this information as if it were gold handed to you on a platter. Why accept this? Especially if it is poorly written and presented.

Often you can tell right away that an article was not written by someone who understands the English language (or your language of choice/preference) or the topic at hand. Poor construction, terrible grammar, odd choices of descriptive language, and overall generic basics of topic are key indicators that you have been duped.

In the end though, why isn’t the company/individual you are working with or trust writing this material on their own? I suspect it is because they are the following…

  1. Lazy.
  2. Not as experienced as you would think.
  3. Terrible communicators.
  4. Thieves in that they are just taking article ideas from other locations and asking someone to write them anew for their own use.
  5. Just looking to game the Google link system by flooding content online so they can generate traffic to their sales site.

Don’t get me wrong. I write blog articles to promote myself and I link these articles to sites and post these articles on social media. That is what blogs are for. However, I write these articles myself based on my own experience and expertise. I would never consider asking a third party to write on my behalf on a topic I’m an expert on. And, as for the bogus blogs, I would never ask a third party to write a blog on my behalf on a topic I’m not an expert on but want to include as part of my self promotion. To me that is unethical.

Certainly you may find some blog articles useful even if it wasn’t written by the source that is presenting it. Newb’s to any realm will find free information useful and you probably don’t care where that information came from. But you should. If the source isn’t an expert in everything, why would you take at face value the information you just consumed and appreciated?

Larger corporations have dedicated bloggers that routinely write about the company activities as a means to promotion and information. But the “Blog” itself was really embraced by small companies as a means to generate cross links online so you find their web site and purchase from them. When you know that blogs are often just a method of promotion and advertising, and not really just free information (unlike my current blog), you should immediately be suspect.

You choose the newspapers and television news sources you want based on your experience of knowing what is real and what is just silly promotion. But in terms of blogs, are you really getting honest and expert information? Or, are you instead just getting “content” meant to promote the business via key words and links by a person not very experienced in the topics at hand?

I encourage you to reach out to those small company graphic and trade show blogs you read and find out specifically who is writing the content. In fact, you should ask to speak to the writer (especially with small companies) and be prepared with a sampling of articles so you can ask specific questions as to why they wrote what they wrote. Give them a test. I wouldn’t be surprised if you are given the answer of “no you can’t speak to that person” or you find that they can’t answer your test questions.

There are experts out there. You will find some outlets that are genuine. But today the Internet has turned into more “content generation for link acquisition” than sharing of knowledge like it was intended. With that in mind, you should be more careful where you get your information.

Jacob Norris.

http://www.jacobnorris.com

http://blog.jacobnorris.com

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About Jacob Norris

Graphic Designer with over 20 years of experience working in all forms of print media.
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