Developing unique content is surely a necessity and challenge for building rankings in the search engines and by extension, developing a following.
Search engines look for and reward unique content – not because they want to make us SEO copywriters miserable but because they want to find the most valuable information for their users.
And the search engines are very good at identifying unique content. They will be able to easily determine what’s legitimate and what isn’t.
Below are three major classifications of unique content.
1. Editorial content
These are things like blogs and articles – anything that is written by a human. Examples of this is our SEO blog and SEO knowledge center. This is ideal for small sites trying to corner a certain niche. You can either generate this yourself or hire a SEO copywriter to research and write it.
2. Machine-built content
Examples of this include sites like Expedia and Bing travel – basically things like hotel reviews or unique data regarding a product or service. The sites take data sources and produce automated content. Real estate sites like Zillo.com are great examples. Payscale.com and Salary.com are great examples in the job search/HR area.
3. User-generated content
Is just that, content generated by site visitors. It’s extremely difficult to harness but can be very valuable if it’s done right. You have to first build a community of followers and then have incentives for them to produce content. Sites like Wikipedia, Digg and YouTube are just a few examples.
In the end, it pays to have a strategy in place before you begin generating content. Sit down and figure out which content type is best for what you’re trying to build and the business you’re trying to leverage. It is possible to use a combination of all three.
Watch this video from Rand Fish at SEOMoz to learn more.
SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – Generating Unique Content from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.
Tags: Online Marketing, organic search, search engine optimization, SEO copywriting
