Do Cheap Articles Work?

In my research into online marketing techniques I’ve noticed (we’ve ALL noticed) that there are two kinds of online articles.

There are the articles which make sense and have a beginning, middle, and end; and, there are articles which seem to have little purpose beyond being keyword stuffed. Their sentences look something like this: "Are you curious about internet marketing? Many people are curious about internet marketing and those who want to know more about internet marketing can find internet marketing sites online simply by searching for ‘internet marketing’."

I decided to go to the source and ask some contacts in the freelance writing and marketing field about these. They make a strict delineation between what they call "cheap articles" and "normal articles".

The cheap ones cost "next to nothing: (their words) and are often stuffed with keywords and spelling and grammatical errors. The "normal" articles cost more but the quality is higher. They point out that they get frequent requests for both kinds of articles. The cost ratio is anywhere from $1:$10 to $1:$100. What a gap! So which ones work?

To be fair to both sides: Cheap articles might not read well but you can get a bunch of them online fast which equates to plenty of backlinks. On the other hand, higher priced articles read better but you might get fewer backlinks because there simply are a fewer number of articles. With a cost ratio of $1:$10, you can spend $10 and get 10 articles or one article. On a strictly budgetary level it makes economic sense to get 10 articles.

However, there are other factors to consider: What is the likelihood that each type of article will be (1) picked up by other publishers and (2) read by an audience? With that in mind, the field turns in favor of the higher priced choice.

And to be honest, that’s where I prefer to be in my internet marketing: For me, it comes down to the customer. I might want backlinks – lots of back links – but if I don’t get quality traffic from it, it doesn’t matter. And cheap articles just don’t make the grade here. They may search well in Google but if a customer can’t get through the content, they are not likely going to click through to your site. On the other hand, if my higher quality articles attract interest (and they DO still search well and link back) then customers are more likely to click through to my site.

But in this economy, we’re all definitely mindful of the cost of marketing. I’d like to hear from you on this point.

Do you prefer lower priced articles that give you back links? Do you prefer higher priced articles that might be more "people friendly"?

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