Writing articles to promote your business has long been a very successful marketing tactic. With the birth of the internet it has become very popular to publish these articles online.

In my opinion it has become too easy and bad quality content is published just for the sake of link building and SEO purposes. It won’t do anyone’s brand any good and it probably won’t be read anyway.

On the other hand, it is true that people go online to search for information and with print publications currently under enormous financial pressure it makes sense to publish news online. It is easy and much cheaper.

While internet users have grown accustomed to getting news, pictures, videos and other content for free, Patrick McGovern, IDG chairman of online publication such as PC World and InfoWorld, believes people will pay monthly subscribtions for online newspapers solidly tapped into their communities.

I’m an advocate of WebPR, but consumers must start paying for quality content. And I think they will. If it is news they’re interested in, it makes sense to pay for it in the same way you would’ve paid for a physical magazine.

With the recent closing down of two pritned publications in our field - net.work and Computing SA, paying for content is the only way we can save publications and for journalists to keep their jobs. And off course, paid for content will seperate the good from the bad.