Content Writing FAQ:

Q. Can you show me an example of your content?

A. Yes, just get in touch and we will be happy to email you examples of our work. We don't publish any examples on our site as we don't want to fall foul of any duplicate content penalties from the search engines.

Q. What are your minimum contract terms?

A. We don't have minimum contract terms. We operate using a rolling agreement which may be terminated with a month's notice at any time. We're confident of providing a quality service and don't feel the need to tie any of our clients into long term contracts. However for the best results in terms of search engine optimisation we advise you to maintain your content writing and link building campaigns for as long as possible.

Q. Can I just place a one-off order of say 100 articles or do I have to be tied down to a contract?

A. Our content writing packages and pricing are based on predetermined levels of articles delivered to our clients per month. We have a team of writers who work to quite strict schedules and timetables in order for us to be as streamlined and cost effective as possible.
Our aim is to deliver long term SEO results via content writing (and link building) and the best way to do this is to deliver a regular flow of fresh content to our client's sites ongoing. However we will evaluate every request for "one-off" content writing requests on an individual basis.

Q. Can you rewrite news stories from other websites/content providers?

A. No, we don't do this for two reasons:

1) Some content providers may include 'seed' sentences or keywords in their content or may produce something otherwise very specific which can be easily detected when searching and, although substantially re-writing something isn't necessarily breach of copyright, it's a very grey area which we avoid.

2) Our writers tend to gather research material from multiple sources rather than a single source. In most cases the degree of duplication will be inherently higher if we go for a single source route and it won't necessarily yield the desired long term search engine results.

Q. I’m launching a new site and would like you to write some content for me. As it’s a new venture not in the public domain will you sign an NDA before I give you details?

A. Yes of course, we sign these for many clients.

Q. When trading content-for-links who owns the full rights to the content you create? Is there a legal agreement for the link partner or is it more informal than that?

A. Its all fairly informal. Very occasionally we get link partners asking us to make an undertaking that the content is our original work and that we have rights and title to it which we of course are happy to do.

Effectively, title to the content rests with us until it is published (with the link properly included) on the partner's site. If a partner were to simply publish the content without the link and subsequently refused to include the link we would ask them to remove the content as they would not be fulfilling their part of the bargain.

In practice this has almost never been an issue. Our systems regularly re-check live link partners including content-for-links to ensure that the link has remained in place. We will contact any where this is not the case and ask them to reinstate it.

Click here for our content writing packages and prices

Link Building FAQ:

Q. Can you show me an example of a site where your link building has achieved good results?

A. Yes, just get in touch and we will be happy to email you examples of our results.

Q. What are your minimum contract terms?

A. We don’t have minimum contract terms. We operate using a rolling agreement which may be terminated with a month’s notice at any time. Again we’re confident of providing a quality service and don’t feel the need to tie any of our clients into long term contracts. However for the best results in terms of search engine optimisation we advise you to maintain your content writing and link building campaigns for as long as possible.

Q. What does "number of solicitations" mean?

A. The number of solicitations refers to the number of email requests we will send out on a monthly basis on your behalf.

Q. What is your average conversion rate from solicitations to actual links gained?

A. On average it is between 2% and 4%. It tends to vary due to the sector and the quality of the client’s website.

Q. Can you guarantee a response rate or a minimum number of actual live links gained per month?

A. We don’t guarantee minimum results in terms of links generated for you but we monitor client campaigns continually. If we get to a mid point in a monthly cycle and we are not seeing a sensible response level, we will issue further solicitations (at no additional cost to you) to ensure an appropriate response rate.

Q. What type of email do you send to potential link partners? I receive loads and they’re all rubbish.

A. This is perhaps one of the biggest differences between our approach and that taken by most other firms. We all receive lots of the kind of ‘third party’ emails you describe, often poorly written, many of them clearly created off-shore and almost invariably representing an irrelevant or spammy site. Our email system is modular – each email is built of building blocks, any or all of which can be configured specifically for a client, particularly the initial emails which are the ones that matter most.

Perhaps more importantly, we don’t email as us – we email as you! In many cases we even use the client’s own mail server to send the emails. People receiving our emails are far more likely to read them and to treat them seriously as a result. All of our email systems are our own proprietary technology which we constantly refine to minimise spam blocking and to maximise conversion rates. We even have a team dedicated to handling bounced email so that they don’t go to waste. It takes quite a while to explain in detail how we achieve all of this but we would be very happy to talk you through it.

Q. Can I see where my live links have been placed?

A. Yes, we will provide you with a monthly report that shows you the number of solicitations sent out on your behalf as well as the success rate and the URL’s where the links/content has been placed. In the coming weeks we will have a client login area live where you can see this information 24/7.

Q. Why would I choose “content-for-links” over “reciprocal linking”?

A. Content-for-links ONLY campaigns should only be used for clients who may not have the ability or space in which to publish links in order to exchange links. Ideally, Content-for-links should be combined with reciprocal linking for most clients to create a balanced or ‘natural’ link structure. Where we are using the content-for-links, alone or in combination with a reciprocal link campaign, we offer third parties some relevant website content which we create specifically for them, in return for which we ask for a link back to our client’s site. A powerful approach since, in many cases, your link will end up on its own page rather than on a links page, surrounded by relevant content: it doesn’t get better than this from a search engine perspective! Conservatively we would estimate that the inbound links from 7-8 content-for-links partners are worth some 100+ reciprocal links. However it is again worth noting that it is considerably harder to obtain links this way so should only be used on its own where reciprocal linking is not an option. For best results use our combined packages which offer both options.

Q. Do the prices you quote for “content-for-links” include costs for writing the articles that will hold my links?

A. Yes, it includes bespoke hand-written articles especially created for your link partners’ sites. The number of articles will depend on your site and the niche it occupies and thus the campaign response rate. Our fees to you are fixed at the agreed rate – we take the entire risk regarding the cost of the number of articles we must create in any given month for you.

Q. Can I buy just one month’s worth of your link building services?

A. No, even though there is no minimum contract, we advise an absolute minimum term of 6 months. Ideally, for best results you should maintain link building on an ongoing basis as part of your overall growth strategy.

The reason that we won’t offer a one month contract for say 1000 solicitations is that if we sent out 1000 solicitations in the first month then we may not get replies back until the second month. And if you have ended the contract by then, you won’t see the benefit of those links. Also, for link building to have the greatest effect you need to keep the momentum going for as long as possible.

Q. If I terminate your contract will all of the inbound links you have gained for me remain in place?

A. Yes. We do not remove any links when you end the contract. Remember that, unlike some of the risky ‘warm’ linking approaches currently on offer where link building firms will actually give you links from their own network or from other sites whey they have paid for ‘real estate’, we do not own or control the sites from which we obtain links – these are genuine third party links. Please bear in mind however that if you terminate the contract we won’t be able to monitor the status of them any more for you.

Q. Do you solicit for links via email or telephone?

A. The solicitations are made by email as this is the quickest, most convenient and frankly the only economically sensible method. We have a central database of thousands of sites, all categorised by sector and niche that helps us when trying to find the relevant contacts for a given website. However, we drive all of our targeting by the ranking of potential partners in the search engines for relevant keywords.

Q. Do you send out the email solicitations as ContentNow or as the client?

A. We send out emails as the client, usually in the format webpartners@clientname.com or similar. This helps greatly in terms of response and conversion rates. Our implementation team will work with you to set this up. We use the client’s mail servers where possible, again to maximise conversion rates. If it isn't viable to do this we can use our client domains.

Q. Can I choose the keywords/keyphrases that I want for my linking campaign?

A. Yes, when we enter into the consultation process before going live we will discuss keywords and keyphrases etc. We advise a mixed 'core term' and 'longtail' term approach, particularly where the terms are in competitive categories. Broad single word terms are very hard to achieve rankings for and will generally drive poorly qualified traffic. Specific and so-called 'longtail' terms of three or more words are more readily achievable and should drive higher quality traffic. As a result, we advise targeting a combination of 'core' terms and longtail terms and of course recommend checking search data (e.g. Google's AdWords keyword tool) to verify search volumes and look for relevant terms/term components that are actually searched for!

Q. If I order a linking campaign for 1000 reciprocal links a month can I split them up over my two websites? I.e. 500 link solicitations for each site?

A. There is a substantial set-up process involved in initiating linking campaigns because we take such a personalised approach and our prices are set to reflect this. At the higher solicitation volumes we should be able to agree something. At the lower end, the administrative and technical overheads involved make it difficult to divide a low volume package this way.

Q. I live outside of the UK, do you accept new clients from overseas?

A. Yes. At each billing cycle we will use independent currency convertor http://www.xe.com/ucc/ to convert our prices from £UK pounds sterling to your local currency. We will then review the exchange rate at each new billing cycle.

Q. What criteria do you use when searching for link partners for my site?

A. There are two parts to this. The first stage is to identify potential targets. We use the search engines to identify these via relevant search terms: this way we are already restricting the targets to sites that the engines regard as deserving ranking in a relevant area. Once we have identified potential targets, our exclusions system removes everyone that has opted out or that we have, over the years, found to have some kind of issue (poor linking, poor quality site, FFA / link far / co-operative ad networks, other spammy behaviour, requiring payment etc.). We also of course remove those that we have recently targeted for you; those with whom you already have a link; your own site network and your competitors. The rest we target. We keep doing this until we have targeted the agreed number of potential link partner sites.

The second stage is assessing the responses as they come in. We manage each one by hand. Although we have a great deal of technology to support us, our staff personally look at each and every responder’s site and assess it for quality and for any of the behavioural issues mentioned above. If they pass all of the tests, we will go ahead and trade links. If they don’t we will exclude them – either for your campaign or perhaps for all clients, depending on the issue.

It is perhaps worth mentioning the thorny issue of Google page rank here. Many webmasters place perhaps too much emphasis on this. Because we are targeting by ranking for relevant terms, we are inherently focusing on sites that the search engines regard as being of value in a relevant area. As many of you will no doubt have realised, many top ranking sites are page rank zero. Equally, many high page rank sites don’t feature for their target terms. Relevancy and presence in the search engine results is far more important. Without going into the 100+ ranking factors for a site (a great many of which relate directly or indirectly to content or links), page rank is just one of these factors – and is updated only infrequently.

Click here for our link building packages and prices