Article rewriting is a literary skill that many think they possess, but few actually do. There are many reasons for rewriting an article and the approach to the task will generally be dependent on the reason and required result. Let's have a look at some typical objectives people have when rewriting articles.

Article Directory Submission

A popular service I offer is the provision of a second, rewritten, version of a commissioned article, so that the customer receives two articles rather than one. This allows one version to be posted on your own website and the rewritten version to be submitted to article directories. The purpose of doing this is to avoid you competing with others using exactly the same content as you. There seems little point in you placing an article on your own web page then submitting that article to directories from which your competitors can copy them to their own web pages.

You are then competing for keywords against potentially hundreds of other websites using your own article. You may have your resource box on their site, each one giving you a valuable back-link, but this could be insufficient to make up for all that competition with duplicate content that may cause your site to drop down the listings.

What you should do to avoid this is to offer a rewritten version to the directories, and I find this one of my more popular services. The way the article is amended is important. It must give the same meaning as the original, but contain different semantics. The keyword density must be reasonable, around 1%, and the textual theme of the page must be relevant to the keyword targeted. The rewrite should be different enough to be regarded as unique, but not so different that it does not adequately address the topic at hand.

Using The Same Article On More Than One Web Page

Exactly the same approach should be used if you want to use the same article on a number of different websites or pages utilising the same keyword. Here, you are competing against yourself, and the article should be rewritten so that this does not happen. You have the same situation as that above, except you are your own competition. Unless the article is radically rewritten you may be in danger of diluting your website with too much similar content. In my view, this is the most common reason for article rewriting.

Using The Same Article For Different Keywords

I have frequent requests for rewrites where the customer wants to use the same article for a range of different keywords. This involves a slightly different style of rewriting since two keywords rarely have exactly the same meaning. How many exact synonyms are there? Very few, since most words have their own roots and there are generally different nuances in meaning between words which are synonymic in some contexts, but not in all.

In such cases the article will be adjusted to meet the requirements of the vocabulary being used. For example, the terms ‘internet marketing' and ‘online marketing' appear to have the same meaning in the context of marketing techniques, but the words ‘internet' and ‘online' are not synonyms – not even close. You can work ‘online' but you can't work ‘internet'. The reason is that ‘internet' can be a noun or an adjective, while ‘online' can be an adjective or an adverb.

The consequence of this is that one cannot always be used synonymously for the other, so article rewriting involves more than simple word substitution. It involves a good knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. This is where I see most attempts at rewriting articles go wrong: through misuse of grammar and a misunderstanding of the parts of speech. It can get complicated when we consider noun, adjective and adverb clauses, and article rewriting is not as simple as most believe.

Rewriting Scraped Articles

A major rewrite service I am frequently asked to provide is a complete rewrite of an article so that it bears little resemblance to the original. The customer likes the look of an article, but wants it rewritten so that it is indistinguishable from the original. A bit of a conflict there, I feel. Whenever I get work like this I am suspicious that the article has been scraped from the internet and the author's resource box removed. The customer wants the article rewritten with his or her own name as author, and written so that the original author will not recognize it. What's the point? I prefer to write from scratch because it is easier, and I therefore charge more for rewrites than original work. It is easier for authors to give their own slant on a topic than copy that of another.

The next time you want an article rewritten please determine clearly what your objective is. If a rewrite is essential have it done professionally or it could harm your listing rather than improve it, and please do not ask for a rewrite if a fresh article would do – it is easier for a professional article writer to write originally than copy another author's style. If the sense of the piece is to be exactly maintained, article rewriting is not as simple a task as most people believe it to be.