What is duplicate content?
Clients often wonder about the concept of "duplicate content" and how Google may penalize a site for this black-hat SEO tactic. Google views duplicate content as an issue when a webmaster attempts to game their SEO system by filling a web page with repetitive words in an effort to get that page ranked higher in search engine results. The most egregious efforts being pages that say something like "Atlanta Estate Planning, Atlanta Estate Planning, Atlanta Estate Planning, Atlanta Estate Planning, Atlanta Estate Planning," and so on to websites or blog posts that have the same closing paragraph or tag line on EVERY post, to sites that merely reproduce someone else's website in an effort to hijack their traffic.
What about blog posts for Essential Attorneys™?
In Google terms, your blogs do not have a "duplicate content" issue. Consider news wires that distribute the same news story across 100s or even 1,000s of news outlets online. Duplicate content is not an issue – it's called syndication. Avoid adding a standard closing paragraph to every blog post, which over time may penalize your domain authority/rank.
Edit your blog posts to make them unique.
Essential Attorneys™ receiving weekly blog support are encouraged take a moment to change things up a bit within your own blog posts. We suggest adding your own anecdotal comments, to spice things up with your own insights and experiences, and to write your own blog posts from time to time. The blog posts from IMS are sample posts. You are free to use them as-is, as a springboard idea to write your own, make small or major edits.
The more of your own personality you can add to the blogs, the better connection you will make with your readers.
How can you learn more?
We recommend the following resources:
- http://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/content-strategy-in-2015/
- https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66359?hl=en
What does IMS do to keep Essential Attorney™ websites safe from duplicate content?
We run your website through Google Webmaster Tools and a third-party auditor to check the site for health issues, to include checking for duplicate content within your domain.