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The increasing involvement of consumers on the web and the resulting growth of user-generated content (UGC) have introduced new, powerful ways for businesses to leverage their customer base. According to MarketingVox and Nielsen BuzzMetrics, “More than 25 percent of search results on Google for the world’s 20 largest brands are links to [user-generated] content.” Additionally, ClickZ cites data from marketing firm Compete that found UGC “spurred 24 percent of [surveyed] consumers to alter decisions about a vehicle purchase or travel reservation.”
During the past five years, two factors have led to online audiences becoming more engaged. First, the introduction of tagging marked a big shift in how content was located by search engines. Tagging empowers authors to determine exactly which categories of content will be retrieved when a user searches for the tagged words. Second, visitors are contributing content in a variety of new ways. For example, publishers have learned to relinquish content control to readers, through blogs, YouTube, and other means of participation.
Due to these changes, people are emerging as manual search engines. Individuals now have the opportunity to, and often succeed in, taking over the conversation and growing the discussion into something more than a simple article. Within these conversations, two unique subsets have emerged from the online community: the community engagers and the accidental engagers.
Community engagers actively participate in an online community on a regular basis and, while they may not be experts on the topic, want to be heard by other members of the community. Accidental engagers visit the community by chance — from Google searches, for example — with the goal of posting their opinions and returning only to view comments that address their postings.
To successfully harness the power of these types of communities, companies must empower visitors to express their thoughts openly and honestly. Even if the engagers contradict your own thoughts, it results in more dialogue, more keywords and, ultimately, better results on search engine results pages (SERPs).
At the very core of generating better SERP results through the use of UGC is well-written content; it beats everything. Write in a style that encourages visitors to express their own detailed opinions. Posing questions in blog posts and rewarding contributors with direct response, recognition, and prizes can boost the amount of UGC on your site. Having content that appeals to your readers and is easy to follow eliminates the need for Google ads or other promotional tactics driving traffic to your site, as visitors are driven to you through search engine listings.
Adding multimedia content like videos, slideshows, and images that are properly tagged can help pages rank highly on SERPs. Having unique multimedia encourages other bloggers and forum users to link to your pages.
The second key to ensuring success is giving your site a personal feel. Respond to a large number of comments and interact with your community to remind them that you are a real person with opinions and thoughts, even if there are occasional disparities between your thoughts and theirs.
Finally, engage visitors once they arrive at your site. The best way to do this is through a clear call to action. Invite visitors to do something, ask them what they think of a particular topic, or engage the community in a promotion. For example, by asking the community a simple question such as, “What is the most valuable thing you’d lose if you lost your hard drive?” — it’s not unheard of to see over 7,000 comments.
When considering offering promotions on your site, see that the following criteria are met:
By keeping these tips in mind, you can take steps toward successfully elevating your SERP results. While the center of this success is well-written content and allowing your community to openly respond to content, working with bloggers will provide more interest and support better blogger relations, while building a broader, more targeted online community.
Chris Aarons, co-founder of Buzz Corps, is a seasoned marketing and public relations professional who is breaking ground at the intersection where corporate communications and social media meet. With his in-depth knowledge of online communities and influencers, Aarons has successfully tackled challenges for industry-leading companies, including HP, Dolby Laboratories, Philips Electronics, and Kodak.
Andru Edwards is the CEO of Gear Live Media, a weblog publishing company that contains some of the most popular technology and pop culture blogs and video podcasts on the web. Andru and his blogs have been quoted in USA Today, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Seattle Times, Seattle Post- Intelligencer, and NPR, among others, thanks to a focus on social media engagement. You can find him on Twitter under @andruedwards.
Xavier Lanier is the publisher of Notebooks.com and GottaBeMobile. com, two mobile technology enthusiast sites that rank highly in search engines for some of the most coveted search terms in the technology industry. You can find him on Twitter under @XavierLanier.