Site content creation
-
I have a new customer that wants to build a comprehensive website to provide dental health information. However, he's a busy dentist and can't develop all the content himself. He particularly likes what mercola.com (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/current.aspx or http://blogs.mercola.com/sites/vitalvotes/default.aspx) is doing to provide content from other sources.
At first I thought this could be a good thing and that we could setup some Google Alerts that would alert us to new content related to specific topic areas and then post excerpts and links to the original source of the content.
But now I'm concerned that we'll get penalized for this.
Can you give me some advice on how to go about getting new/fresh content on a new website that doesn't require someone to write it all themselves?
Thank you!
-
I would go to that meeting with some examples....
Joe Schmoe dentist has articles about this and this and this on his site.
Ask what are his specialties? What expertise does she want to share? Pet peeves?
This is your dentist's opportunity to improve the dental health of every person who visits his/her website.
-
Wow! Thank you all for such fast and excellent responses. I guess you've all confirmed my suspicion. In looking again at the mercola.com website, I see that they are actually adding some unique content to each post. I suspect they may have a staff person or copywriter doing this since none of the posts are very long.
I'll re-approach my client and see if I can explain to them a better approach and why it's better in the long run to provide good unique content themselves.
Thanks everyone!
-
However, he's a busy dentist and can't develop all the content himself.
It is really hard to get webdesign and SEO clients to author their own content. They don't "get it" that this can be some of the most important marketing for their business and a way to demonstrate their credibility, professionalism and unique style.
I think that it is worth getting some ideas about the benefits of authorship together and approaching the dentist a second time about this subject.
-
It is a tough question. We have been down this road, and found that in the end, it has to be unique content. It's really challenging to ask a client who is not a writer to write, just as it is difficult to ask a writer to be a dentist.
We use a combination system at times. We send a q and A sheet to the client on different topics. We then have a professional writer turn it into a page or article.
-
Dunamis did really well in pointing out core issues, and a technique that I highly recommend to clients. What I'll add here is that if you go the route of excerpts, and do not add unique content to those - enough that the majority of content is the unique new portion, the site will be very poorly received by visitors and search engines.
Individual articles should be at least a few hundred words of unique content. Anything less will result in those pages either being completely ignored by the search engines, or worse, flagged as either duplicate content (you don't have to have an exact copy of another page to get the dupe content flag - even if only a good portion of the page is replicated, that's enough without that extra unique content), or even possibly not even indexed at all.
-
Tough question....I think that any solution that doesn't involve someone writing fresh content is not going to work well. If you're using someone else's articles then it's not unique content and I would guess that it wouldn't be terribly helpful for your site.
One option would be to hire someone to write articles. You can find copywriters in just about any niche. Or, what may be less expensive and possibly better would be for the customer to have an employee write articles for the site. If you wanted to be involved, one idea would be for you to scan google news occasionally - set up alerts for dental issues and then see what news stories come in. For example, here's one in today's news:
http://music.aol.co.uk/2011/06/07/john-lydon-speech-problems-surgery/
You could have the dentist or an employee write an article that describes what could have happened there. But, if you just provide an excerpt or a link it's not likely to help you much from an SEO perspective.
That probably doesn't help much though if you are looking for a solution that doesn't involve someone writing the material themselves!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is it better to have micro-sites with good content or redirect domains?
I have a domain with a lot of content and it is an eCommerce site. I've just been told that we have another 12 domains that are inactive and do not redirect. I don't know what to do with them as they haven't been used for ages and do not direct or have any content (max of a DA or 4). Therefore which is better for SEO? To have really good content with perhaps a few regular blog posts on each of the 12 domains, or to redirect all of the domains to the one main domain? I would take 1 domain and put a lot of content on and optimise is.. spending a few weeks on one and then move onto another, all while posting on each blog on each domain. Thank you for any help! 🙂
Link Building | | schloeee0 -
Cyber Monday Deal Submission Sites?
Hi, Does anyone know of any good sites where I can submit a Cyber Monday deal/sale? Thanks!
Link Building | | S.S.N0 -
Content Marketing and how it effects Rankings
Hi there everyone! I have what I think is a simple question, but one I can't fully understand the answer to. If I had a homepage that I wanted to optimize for the keyword, e.g. "Second Hand Cars", so I add the keyword in the page title and text etc etc. But I still don't rank well for it. So I turn to content marketing and create some content on my site's blog about new cars, sports cars, and of course second hand cars, with some great content and anchor text pointing back to the home page. Now here's my question, how does creating that content on a blog, or on someone's blog/website help my homepage rank higher for my chosen keyword? Surely it would just help the blog post rank higher? And if someone were to search for "Buy Secondhand cars", wouldn't my hypothetical blog post (with more shares and links than my home page) rank higher than the home page itself? If anyone can clear this up for me I'd be eternally grateful! Thanks in advance Cheers
Link Building | | CD_20160 -
How do I distributing Articles to the correct sites
I'm relatively new to the SEO world, however, I've landed myself a SEO job for a mobility bath, shower and wetroom company.
Link Building | | desktop_nev
I've optimize the pages and added links to directories BUT I would like to start gaining quality links. I've wrote articles, including keyword links, but I would like to know the best strategy to get articles distributed to generic/industry specific sites.
Any help will be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance1 -
What benefit does a site with a low DA get from someone guest posting who links to a site with a high DA?
I'm relatively new to link building and although this may be an obvious question I can't seem to find an answer anywhere even after searching Google.
Link Building | | JoshED0 -
Strengthening my personal coaching site
Hello, My domain for my personal coaching site is my name bobweikel(dot)com and I think this is weak for all of my keywords, but I'm sticking with it. What's some of the easiest way I could gain strength with national keywords so that people will pursue phone coaching with me, terms like nlp coach wealth and success coach wealth coach personal coach life coach I know that these are varying greatly in competitiveness. Thanks!
Link Building | | BobGW0 -
What is the delay of link insertion in Open Site Explorer?
Hello, Someone know the delay for links insertion in Open Site Explorer? Because i know my site have a lot more links who are not in OSE. Thanks.
Link Building | | caroy0 -
Photography Site ranking!
Hi I am working on a photography site: www.daffodilwaves.co.uk now there isn't many pages nor is the that much text. However you will see that they have a blog (poorly designed one which we are addressing) Now blog posts I feel can be really good as there is generally alot of naturally written text which I don't feel I need to influence. Also generally people will comment so I also believe that is good for rankings too. However I find that the blog ranks higher than the actual website and I dont want that to occur the website is the one that generates the bookings. So can you give me some ideas to transfer the ranking from the blog to the website? I was thinking that within the article I could simply link back to the homepage - would you think that is a good idea? If so would you suggest I use particular anchor text? such as "Wedding Photographer" or "Comtemporary wedding Photographer" Thanks
Link Building | | Springnik0