Merchants swap content for Page Rank...?

[aotagain]

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Hi, I'm curious... anyone seeing these emails and what do you think ?
Oddly they've come into affiliate sites which I don't get and a merchant site, which I do get - I think.

Seen a few of these content for link 'swap' emails recently from some merchants who have affiliate schemes. The merchant says they don't write a sales pitch. As there is no link-back from the merchant, then the merchant gets the Page Rank from the site where the content is put. Certainly beats spam linking emails. Site gets content, merchant gets PR... until site realises there's an affiliate scheme anyway.

"Hello. I`m Mr. X the Manager at merchant name....introductory stuff.....

We have an idea which I hope you will find useful - we originally found (your website) by searching for blah blah related to our business, but in fact we have a load of information relating to your subject... we are looking for good quality partners like you (nice flattery!) that have a theme like our site.

We would like to have our editorial team research and hand write some content for you to add to a page on (your site)... agree a relevant subject ... include a single simple text link back to a relevant content page on our site... content uniquely written.

... helpful to your visitors and of course the search engines, as will the presence of a relevant link back to us. Hopefully we will also benefit from the link in the longer term... not currently in the position of being able to exchange or return links so we thought this could be a good alternative... no costs whatsoever for you"

Personally, if they are going to write to me as an affiliate, then offer me the content page to go with an affiliate link, not a free linkback, otherwise I will get the 'ump !

[channel5]

They are mass emailed out, we get them from our competitors regularly.

Anyone taking up the offer is usually even more dumb than someone doing a link exchange as the link back to the merchant/other website is way more valuable than the small amount of content that they give you, all you are doing is helping push them up the SERPs which by definition helps keep you down.

[fizzbird]

Anyone taking up the offer is usually even more dumb than someone doing a link exchange as the link back to the merchant/other website is way more valuable than the small amount of content that they give you, all you are doing is helping push them up the SERPs which by definition helps keep you down.

I agree

We would like to have our editorial team research and hand write some content for you to add to a page on (your site)...

Which will be complete garbage.

[cclapper]

Its the automated emails from Content writing and ethical link building - ContentNow.co.uk . I got plenty of them as well but I am not really annoyed by them. Clients of ContentNow pay £150 for 500 of these emails. They are well written and some webmasters might see them useful - however, for any commercial oriented site don't think its a good deal. But of course its worth trying as a content link from a competitor is very valuable

[Mogga]

on in my email I found using the phrase "We have an idea which I hope you will find useful - we originally found" is about as badly matched as you can get. So I hope whoever paid for it wasn't too disappointed.

[channel5]

Clients of ContentNow pay £150 for 500 of these emails.

Is that £150 regardless of the conversion rate? Do they have to pay for content for anyone that takes them up on the offer on top?

[cclapper]

Is that £150 regardless of the conversion rate? Do they have to pay for content for anyone that takes them up on the offer on top?

Not sure mate. Haven't been their client, just somehow worked out that it could be them. Now can't find 100% proof so I better shut-up and let ContentNow to respond. I am sure guys from there are monitoring this forum closely so they can explain everything more clearly.

[aotagain]

Its obviously a potentially good way of getting links from good sites which don't have affiliate relationships with the merchant. Certainly better than the link spam proposals. Some sites do need content and won't necessarily be interested in being affiliates.

Is it an exclusive link ? because you could also do affiliate links to other merchants couldn't you ? ie. get the content in return for a link to merchant A and then link to 5 other merchants. I expect its required to be an exclusive link though...

Having said that, writing content for links as a concept is pretty good if you've got a new 'interest' type site that you're trying to expand. I'll get me pen...

[fizzbird]

no relevant text mate

[KieronD]

Is that £150 regardless of the conversion rate? Do they have to pay for content for anyone that takes them up on the offer on top?

Hi guys, thanks for the comments. As I am the co-owner of ContentNow.co.uk I thought I'd better respond.

We offer a content-for-links service for clients who fit into 1 or 2 categories. The first is for clients who have a website that they can't physically alter the structure of, and can't therefore build pages to hold reciprocal links. An example of this will be an affiliate who is operating a white-label site. The second category are the client's who for whatever reason, don't wish to host reciprocal links on their site. These are usually the larger corporate companies who have strict policies in place about the appearance of their website.

So on both of these instances we offer a service whereby we will research and target a minimum of 500 potential link partners per month asking them if they would like to receive some unique hand-written content for their site in exchange for a link back to the client. Our charges start at £225 a month for 500 email solicitations and the price also includes the cost of all content that we have to write as and when link partners take us up on the offer. So let's say that out of 500 emails we achieve a conversion rate of between 1% and 2% (normal for this type of approach) then we would write between 5 and 10 unique articles for the link partners as well as place and continually monitor the link to ensure it stays live.

We have a database of hundreds of thousands of sites which are all categorised by niche and sector, on top of that we have some really clever software that constantly seeks out sites that are relevant and on-topic to your site. This assures that every link we get for you is worth as much as possible in terms of search engine "value".

I hope this explains this approach and clears any questions up, please let me know if anybody else has any other questions.

[sgpratley]

I've had 2 of these to affiliate sites and I paid a lot more attention to it than 99% of the link requests I get so I guess you win some you lose some.

I've not seen the content you get back yet, but from previous work I've done with these guys it's not complete dross and a project I worked on with them almost 3 years ago still gets rankings and traffic as a direct result.

I agree that trying to get links from a direct competitor is a bit off-target, but if any merchant wants to hand me some sizeable chunks of genuinely unique, quality content for my affiliate sites I'm more than happy to use it.

[aotagain]

Actually I imagine there are some merchants who should be offering this as a service within their affiliate relationships to promote their offers.

eg. if the merchant is after a particular type of content site for their niche and they find a good one, it may be that that site might not want to spend much time writing content unless they know the merchant converts well - Catch 22.

I know the affiliate should bother, but realistically if you've got a load of merchants you might promote, you can't build content pages for all of them in the hope that some will convert. If on the other hand someone gives you some good content and you've got a site where you can fit pages in easily it might make quite a difference - especially as the merchant may well have data which will tell them which products convert best for your particular type of customers (from their general sales and customer data).