Getting client to spend the time writing article of authority
-
Hi, I've got an issue that I'm sure many of you are good at dealing with. I'm working with an authority in my client's industry. There is the president, who is definitely an authority. There is his wife, who has a name in the field, is an author in the field, but her name is not near as big as the president.
I found a really, really good topic for content that is attracting links in the industry - one of the best content topics possible which really needed to be addressed on my client's website.
I let them know that it needed to be an article of authority, but they had their assistant write it. It's good, she's talented - it's informative, interesting, has 2 embedded videos of the president talking, and is 1650 words. We haven't made the videos yet.
The thing is, doesn't this need to be written by the authority - president. He's a slow writer with zero time, but I think it needs to be his voice with his name on it to attract links.
He's super super busy though.
Should I:
1. Suggest that the president do a thorough editing of the article and put his name on it.
or
2. Have his wife (who has more time) do a thorough editing of the article and put her name on it.
or
3. Leave it as is
or
4. Have the president rewrite the entire article when he has time, which he would be resistant to.
or
5. Have the president's wife rewrite the entire article, which she would be resistant to?
What do you guys think with the little information I've given you?
-
EGOL,
I am once again surprised and thankful for your common sense and words of experience.
I will take all of your advice.
Thank you.
-
<grin>What Egol said is gospel.</grin>
Course....I live by the sword so I'd a just used the CEO 's byline....but yes, as he said, this is another way to go too!
-
First, you should give thanks that you got something.
You told the CEO and his accomplished wife that this was important content and they decided to delegate. That's their decision, not yours. They must trust this person to do a good enough job that they can post her work on the website and not be ashamed of it. If they have a great reputation in the industry they will be picky about what represents them on their website. She could be the next big author in this field. So, I think that you should read what she wrote and be happy with it and the only reason that you should make a fuss is if there are obvious problems with the article that you can recognize as a third party.
Second, you got the CEO to be a talkin' head in a couple of videos that will be posted on this page. So, slap that video above the fold, show the CEOs face in the video window annotated with his name and you got the next best thing to him writing the article. You can also make a separate page that includes these two videos and their transcripts and they might bring in traffic.
Getting it wrapped up.... I would call the CEO or his wife and thank them for the article. Tell them that you are getting ready to post it on the website and ask if they want to add anything else such as a photo or a graph or something.... then ask what they liked about the article to gauge how pleased they are with it.
What next? Get the article posted and once it starts pulling some traffic get back in touch with them and ask for another article... then another... then another. You might have opened a steady stream of content and this author will soon become the most widely read person in the industry. Maybe she will become the equivalent to the Whiteboard Friday of the industry if she produces a stead stream of good content.
-
I would at least try to get him to review it and say you want his name on it. If he won't or cannot review it then put it out there with his name on it anyway
-
Depending upon the channel - the 'name' on the content can count BIG time....so I get your slant on this.
Me? I'd just put the CEO's name on it, period. If his rep carries that much channel juice, then you should ALWAYS go for the most you can get...i.e. just put his name on it....the author obviously works for him so no problem...
-
I think that the most important piece is the content itself, not the author.
If you think that the author's name will be a main attraction (i.e. if the president has his name as the author it will be more attractive to link to) then it may be worth editing it to their liking and publish it under their name.
However, I don't think that is the advantage. The advantage is putting out quality content around the topic you've found. If you have it edited for the president, make sure they are willing and knowingly speaking as the subject originator. If there is something controversial in the article, it will be viewed as the president's opinion - which can have greater negative effect than positive.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Client would like to 301 redirect the homepage to a category page
Hello MOZ Community!!! I would like your expert opinions on a scenario, please! My client is an ecommerce company, and currently has one of its category pages outranking its homepage for a few key phrases. The homepage, however, has a better conversion rate. So, the client is asking that we make the homepage the category URL, so http://www.theirsite.com/blue-clothes. The existing homepage URL - http://www.theirsite.com - would 301 REDIRECT to the category page - which would render the current version of the homepage. Therefore, there would be nothing, ZERO content, on the MAIN URL: http://www.theirsite.com Has anyone ever done this before? What are the pros and the cons of this practice? Here is my same client, for reference: https://moz.com/community/q/issue-with-category-ranking-on-page-1-vs-homepage-ranking-on-page-2
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | accpar0 -
Did I get hit with a panda update?
I have a site that is a marketplace. We don't own any items, the sellers fill everything out and then it goes up on the site. Many of our sellers also have their own sites and just send us a spreadsheet with all of their items and we bulk upload. In that case what we are putting up is very similar to what they already have up on their own site. I used the Fruition penalty checker and they seem to be suggesting that we got hit with some penalties for Panda and Quality Content. With the Google Algorithm it is hard to know for sure what we got hit with. Is it possible Google sees us as one of those crappy scraper sites? Is there anything we can do? We never see the items so I can't add to peoples description.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
How do I get my site to rank in the right country?
I work with an organization in the United States that purchased a 3 letter .com domain from another company based in the Netherlands. After transferring the domain and setting up the new site we've completed the following: Registered the site in Webmaster Tools and selected the United States as the international target target Used Schema Markup on the US business address Built links from US based websites Setup a Google My Business site and verified the address All site content is in english Requested removal of links from sites in the Netherlands that were linking to the old website Disavowed all links from the Netherlands that refused to remove links to the old website Despite these actions, our website rarely shows up in Google.com search results. However, we're in the top 10 for many of the same queries when performing searches at Google.nl - Interestingly enough, if we set our location for the US and do a search in Google.nl we do not show up in the search results.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brianspatterson
It has been about 18 months since we've completed these actions and Google still assumes our website is best served and targeted towards people in the Netherlands. Is there anything else we can do to fix this?Thanks!0 -
Time for Google to change the emphasis?
Why doesn't Google recommend that links are nofollow as standard, via HTML5, etc., with follow being added if the link is on a quality site (defined by PR, or whatever.) and adds value. Wouldn't this save alot of time? Then they could whack all the sites with coding that doesn't comply, couldn't they? Also, instead of enabling negative SEO, why doesn't Google simply focus on wiping out the sites developed simply to pass on PR. I'm sure we could all send them a few thousand suggestions!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Getting Pages Requiring Login Indexed
Somehow certain newspapers' webpages show up in the index but require login. My client has a whole section of the site that requires a login (registration is free), and we'd love to get that content indexed. The developer offered to remove the login requirement for specific user agents (eg Googlebot, et al.). I am afraid this might get us penalized. Any insight?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheEspresseo0 -
What do you do with outdated news and articles?
What do you guys do with your old content/news/articles? Do you just leave them on your site forever for historical reasons? It goes without saying that you wouldn't delete an article that has links pointing to it. But if there aren't any links, it doesn't rank and it doesn't receive traffic… do you just scrap it? How say you? Update: I would also like to throw in that I have a client who in 2006/2007 used content from another site. What would you do with that content after this amount of time? Bother with it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeTheBoss0 -
Should I Remove My Articles From Article Directories?
I have been submitting articles to directories for about 3 years. With the Panda update, it seems that these directories are now obsolete. So, if there is no link value from these articles: 1) should I remove these articles (at east the better ones) and place them on my site/blog? 2) If not, would there be any benefit at pointing some bookmarks at these old links to maybe get some juice out of them?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0 -
My ranking on some keywords is getting better . Now what about geography!
Hi, I finally got a better result on my ranking on specific keyword. Now, here is what I need to do. Just to place you in context, we have acquired 2 companies in Europe since last year ( One in the UK and one in France ) and our head office is in North America. Since our servers are located in NA, I realize the ranking will be better here on specific keywords than it is in the UK and France. I actually managed to get on the first page on google North America, but I am till very var in ranking in France and the UK. Where should I start to get a worldwide ranking ? I could start on the 2 geography mentionned but is there a strategy to get ranked worldwide ? Any help would be appreciated. Best regards,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | processia0