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Web News |
Nordic countries aim to Have IT Turnover of 129 Billion
The turnover on IT services in the Nordic countries will reach EUR 17 billion in 2008. This is an increase of 4.9 per cent compared with last year when the entire turnover reached EUR 16.2 billion. The analysis house Gartner is predicting this. Iceland was not included in the report...
Company Transactions on the Internet Booming
Two of Denmark’s largest company exchanges on the Internet have been very successful in spite of threatening market trends. Whereas the number of company transactions decreased during 2007 two of Denmark’s largest company exchanges on the Internet are...
Huge Million Amount to Kapow
The Danish dot.com surviver to become American. Kapow is to join Morgan Stanley and Walt Disney’s venture company Steamboat.
The Danish IT company Kapow Technologies is now leaving Denmark to become...
'Green' Financial Products Make Headway in Banks
Danske Bank will be the first Danish bank to hop on the climate bandwagon by introducing environmentally sound financial products, reports Børsen financial daily.
The Danish bank is just one of many major banks across...
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03.21.08
How To Get User Generated Content
 By
Richard Burckhardt
User generated content is simply the comments, reviews and feedback left by visitors to your site.
So, why is it so important?
First, it's free content for your site or blog. You didn't have to write it or take the time to come up with the ideas.
Second, those impassioned contributors are actually free marketers for your site (so you want to nurture them and cultivate them!).
Third, it generates credibility and demonstrates the usefulness for your site. As SEOs tend to preach, content is king and the more good user generated content the search engines find, the better they consider the quality of your site.
Fourth, the search engines love it because it feeds them rather than competes with them. In other words, more content equals more crawling.
Fifth, it provides a longtail solution for keywords. No more keyword stuffing to try to catch the longtail!
Sixth, quality user generated content makes it easier to get link love.
Finally, did I mention it's FREE?!
So, now that you've got an idea as to why you should be adding user generated content to your SEO toolkit (If you haven't, you're going to fall behind the pack fast, so get with it!), how do you go about optimizing your site to make the most of it?
1. Consider your site's SEO: Before you do anything else, review the optimization on your site or blog. See my post SEO 101 for basic optimizing tips.
2. If you don't have a blog or forum, get one! This is the first step towards user generated content because blogs and forums are all about comments. If you are just running a static web site, a blog or a forum is a quick way to get started on the road to user generated content land. Better yet, get both! Do some research first and be sure the blog or forum software is search engine friendly. I can't tell you how many help e-mails I've gotten from forum owners who discovered too late that their forum wasn't and none of their content was showing up in the search results.
3. Remove fluff: Posters frequently add self-serving content, including links, which you will have to moderate. Remove it to keep your content targeted and theme centered. This also helps keep the PageRank flow where it belongs and makes the site look better, too.
4. Moderate topic titles: If a poster simply makes the title of his post "Help!" you should change it to something more keyword rich like "I need help with keyword!" where keyword is whatever the topic is.
5. Hard code main keywords: Do this to the main page of your forum or blog (H1 tags) and do the same with the title meta tag on that page.
6. Promote good comments: When you get a really good comment or post, promote it to the main page of your blog or forum and post a notice that you have done so. This rewards the hard work of the poster and they love it!
7. Offer a badge or widget: Make it easy to copy and use and include a link to your site or to the poster's profile. You've seen these on all kinds of social sites. For instance, take a look at the front page to my blog, The Web Optimist. You'll see a Recent Reader list over in the right navigation bar. That's a MyBlogLog badge that lets you join my community.
Continue reading this article...
About the Author:
Richard V. Burckhardt, also known as The Web Optimist, is an SEO based in Palm Springs, CA with over 10 years experience in search engine optimization, web development and marketing.
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