Hecho Designs

My friend gave me some good content writing advice and during our discussion we began talking about scraping content using RSS feeds. We came to realized the need to offer advice about Content Writing. His suggestion was to write a pretty article on how to write nice pretty articles. Sorry, but pretty isn’t my style. Black Hat Content Writing Creating Advice on the other hand…

Warning: I’m giving away some pretty advanced knowledge here. If this peaks your interest, you will need to do additional research on this topic. I will not lie, this is considered a high risk black hat method that can get your website banned! Follow my advice with caution.

A Primer on Content Writing Hierarchy

Create hierarchy in your content writing using heading and sub-heading tabs. These work great at breaking down content into easy to digest chucks and search engines love keyword rich headings.

Next, do some additional reading on Landing Pages. Then read up on the effects of writing for print verse writing for the web. Here are two great resources to help you get started:

Creating Effective Landing Pages - Topics include: What is a landing page? The basics of developing landing pages; Call to action; Short statements; Length of pages; Ask and answer questions; Use of testimonials; and much much more.

Difference Between Paper and Online Presentation - This is a nine-part article at Sun Microsystems. Although dated 1999, it’s just as valid today. Excellent read in my opinion.

Stealing Content and Getting Away with it!

Scraping content is blackhats’ most important weapon. Most Blackhat SEOs that I speak with write very little if any content on their pages. With content being king, queen, and ace; blackhats don’t have time to sit there and write the hundreds of articles they push out by the hour. Instead the Black Hat SEO will pull out his secret weapon: the RSSGM Open Source Portal Builder.

Automatic Content Writing Magic

In short, RSSGM is nothing more then an automatic content generator. Here is the quick and dirty method of getting this nasty little program up and running…

Step One: Download RSSGM

Download RSSGM from http://sourceforge.net/projects/rssgm/  and unzip the RSSGM archive into a folder called rssgm.

Step Two: Upload Using Your FTP Client

Launch your FTP client of choice and login to your hosting account using your ftp username and password. Navigate to your website directory and upload the entire rssgm folder you just created. Next you’ll want to change the permissions on the uploaded rssgm directory.

Final Step: Complete the Installation

Browse to http://www.yourdomain.com/rssgm/install.php and follow the installation instructions.

But butt… Mr?! Won’t content scrapping get your site banned? Yes kids, and Marijuana kills. While it’s true that Content scrapping using automated bots and scripts can be detected, but Google often does a poor job of detecting it when things are setup right.

There are also other programs out there such as DITY which is even hardier to detect (at the cost of also being harder to use), but if you want to play it safe — and yet still want to data mine other people’s content, then readon for my next piece of twisted advice:

Manual Site Scrapping

Think back to your high school days of plagiarism book report writing. We all did it, and let’s not pretend otherwise.

The teacher asks you to write up an article, but you were to busy parting with your friends, so instead of risking an F you Googled for a article summery then changed all the “Donts” to “Do Nots” and the “Him’s” to “I’s.”

Apply the same techniques by manually going out and and data mining for content on your favorite sites. Be careful to not post the entire article and always site your sources– you don’t want lawyers knocking at your door after all.
When content just can’t ooze out of your genius little brain, result to what works: plagiarism content scrapping!

Top Ten Tips for Writing for the Web

• Use short sentences, words and paragraphs
• stick with one idea per paragraph
• Use half the words you would use if you were writing for print
• Put the most important points first.
• Don’t complicate things. Use simple words
• Write in a objective language tone to build credibility
• Use bulleted lists. People (and Google) can’t get enough of them!
• Emphasize your text (bold, color, or hyperlinked) for scannability
• Have meaningful headlines and subheadings
• When all else fails, hire an editor or copywriter.