How to spin articles in a post-Panda Google world

With the rise of Google’s Panda, manual article spinning doesn’t quite have the effect it once had. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that manual spinning of original articles does not have value.

In this article you’ll find useful information on how to manually spin articles along with what you should and should not be doing. In truth, this is more of a best practices article on spinning than one about working around the Panda updates. As is always true, quality is the key in all respects. If you have quality content that people want to read most of the SEO work will be done for you naturally.

Post Panda Spinning 101

The days of using most spinning software is over. Time to face facts folks. Taking a 500 word article and using {word|replacemnet word 1|replacement word 2} as a strategy is long gone…as it should be. We want unique content on the web. As it is now, there’s a disproportionate amount of redundant/spun content online. There’s a serious lack of original content. So, it doesn’t matter if you have a great 1000 word article and have successfully spun it to pass copyscape or you’ve reached that magical 30%+ originality marker. You need fresh content, not regurgitated copy.

My advice always has been to purchase original content. If you can’t write your own articles or just don’t want to then there are a number of great services out there that will write effective content for you. Paying someone to write something current or relevant in your field is a good way of ensuring the content is fresh and unique and there’s always the Google check you can do of various bits of the article to ensure it’s originality. My opinion is that you never start out with less than a 1000 to 1500 word, unique article. Get that, and you are well on your way.

Once you have your article, it’s time for your spinning of that article. You can do this yourself, or again pay for someone to write it for you. What I typically do is take a proofed, unique 1500 word article and give it to other writers to use a reference for creating “spun” new articles. I typically write the spun articles myself. I use the original article and essentially write a piece focusing on a couple of aspects of that article. I’ll quote parts of the original article and I’ll reference it by linking to it but the article I write will be unique. My supporting articles are typically 500 to 1000 words and again, are usually just critics on the original article.

So, never use spinning software, always use fresh content that is more than 1000 words and create new articles based off the original article. Got it?

Just how many articles should you create from the first one? Well, that depends on the original article’s content and length but I tend to create around 5 articles from the main one.

I have my spun articles, now what?

For our purposes, let’s say I have a total of 6 new articles total. One main article and 5 supporting articles. My main article typically gets posted on my money/client site. I’ll typically also syndicate the article across the wires. The supporting articles I will use to submit to the open networks of free press release networks and to my own network of supporting sites. Some of the supporting articles will reference the other supporting articles but they all typically reference the main article both by linked keywords within the articles and in the author and reference section of the websites.

You’re probably asking “Can I use software to auto submit my supporting/spun articles?” Sure! Absolutely you can. That’s where you use the spinning method {word|word 2|word 3} but not for content, only to change out the links and keywords you are referencing that point to the other supporting articles.

Wait a second…6 articles are better than 1000 spun articles?

Absolutely! Spinning is effectively dead. Google has gotten wise and has a very sophisticated process of detecting spun content. Besides, it’s much better to syndicate articles than spin them and in essence you are creating a few highly relevant and targeted “spun” articles. So, even if you don’t have a 1000 spun articles you have 5 greatly unique and relevant articles that are great gateway points to bringing visitors into your site. Yes, this is a visitor-centric strategy and not a SERP manipulation SEO tactic.

Is 5 supporting/spun articles enough?

The more the merrier. The minimum number of supporting articles I spin for a main article is 5 but most times that number is much higher. It’s actually very easy for me to write articles, I’m lucky. I can create 10 supporting, relevant, compeling and unique articles in under an hour. My magic number of articles I create for my main article is usually around 20 and then I distribute those to the free network of press releases and articles but I’ll also pimp those on Twitter and to the various blogs and forums I sometimes pay to advertise on.

The result is a network of great, quality content that naturally support my website’s content and I never have to worry about Google’s Panda or getting content back from automated programs or outsourced partners that is unreadable, broken English garbage. Yes, this is a much more involved and manual (often much more costly process) but it’s the way that works the best and it’s completely Panda approved.

Good luck and I hope this article has helped with your link building efforts. Got any feedback? Feel free to shoot me a note or reply below. Cheers!!