Unique Content

[JasonD]

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Forget Search Engines for the moment and think as a human running your affiliate business. Now let me ask you this question.

How important is unique content to you for your site(s)?

I'd love to hear your comments and thoughts

Thanks

JasonD

[jess1]

unique content is where affiliates I believe should be living. Surely Jason its about as much unique content as possible. Do the search engines not keep stating this over and over again. Surely with unique content, the affiliate is offering some thing different to not only their end users but also will be perceived by the search engines as some thing different and thus get better search rankings.

I would also like to hear other people's comments on this, its a facinating subject.

[JasonD]

I agree entirely Jess but what if the search engines didn't exist or we didn't care about them?

What about Unique Content then ?

[Max_Bush]

I agree entirely Jess but what if the search engines didn't exist or we didn't care about them?

How would that work?

[Ditzy]

I'm a bit inconsistent on this issue ...

I buy most things over the net and as a customer I buy from the site that offers the best value for money combined with safe shopping.

But as someone running an affiliate site I feel differently ... suppose there's a mum out there searching for info on teething and she clicks on my site ... she wasn't planning on shopping but she just might spend some money while she's there or even come back and shop later if she likes the look of the site.

Also unique content separates the men from the boys because it's fairly simple to put a site together but it takes a bit more effort to research and write unique content.

I'm having a harder time with my 2nd site due to my allergy to all things garden related

[JasonD]

How would that work?

Let's say that we have traffic sources outside of the engines. They exist you know, whether it be card dropping, phone marketing, direct mail, or simlpe word of mouth.

People get to your site through means other than search engines. Does unique content help the experience, hinder it, or not have any bearing ?

[Max_Bush]

Let's say that we have traffic sources outside of the engines. They exist you know, whether it be card dropping, phone marketing, direct mail, or simlpe word of mouth.

People get to your site through means other than search engines. Does unique content help the experience, hinder it, or not have any bearing ?

I would say that it was certainly very important. As an example, with football related websites the articles that you generally come across are those rehashed from inside the morning papers with exactly the same quotes, etc.

If I visit a website by recommendation and find interesting (unique) content then I am far more likely to hang around and eventually make a purchase. The content could be equally unique through user interaction (forums, etc) than articles.

If I already knew what I was looking for then I think it has very little relevance in my opinion.

[Another Media]

It certainly helps to get links from other sites - alot of my traffic comes from external links to my sites rather than search engines.

Useful articles, useful downloads etc. is why people visit

[jess1]

if some thing is unique then some one some where will want a part of it, I cant think of anything else that has not already been mentioned. You could sell your unique content or barter with it or copyright it and turn it into a book?

[JasonD]

I agre with everything you all said, thanks.

And on top of that, if we start to think about search engines again for a moment, they too love it so there isn't a downside to putting great stuff on your site. Or is there?

There is a downside to this content stuff. It takes time, resource, energy and therefore loads of money to produce.

Do you know a better way than spending hours at the computer producing or outsourcing it to a specialist company?

[Ditzy]

Ooh you sound totally out of my league

There's just little old me to do the whole kit and kaboodle ... lucky you if you can afford to hire some one else to do the bits you'd rather not do

I enjoy doing the whole lot ... much more satisfying than the day job

[jess1]

Jason: at the moment its just us as individuals writing content and its a risky business out sourcing too.... but I cant see any other way to get around this as most affiliates I am sure would agree. This is going some where.... isn't it

As you are a very clever sausage in the scheme of things I am on tenterhooks

[JasonD]

I don't have the answer (not a perfect one anyway) Jess, just looking for ideas as to how other people get around this problem, if they've investigated it, if they have found a partial answer or anything at all really.

As you know we have quite a few guys n gals who write content as well as a pretty good software development team. Some of their software assists our writers no end, but I wanna make it better

Hell, I'll even do this. Anything that comes out of it I'll make available to everyone who assists in this thread. How does that sound ?

Ideas, I want ideas

[OLBG]

I believe unique content is most important for retaining visitors rather than just attracting them. Its getting harder and harder to get visitors so the last thing you want is for them to forget about you and you need to find them again.

In terms of building unique content I still dont know anyway other than hard work, thats why I tend to focus on things I enjoy so it doesnt feel so much like work.

[Azam.net]

Most webmasters are happy to reuse stuff available elsewhere, but unique content is King and leads to long term profit without being dependent on search engine wizardry. Who would visit the BBC or Guardian sites if they were just rehashed PA newsfeeds?

But, as Jess says, it takes a lot of bloomin' hard work to create and generate high quality, world class content.