If there is one thing that we are being told to do with our websites is to add new content. While this is easy said, how can you add quality useful content on a regular basis. Most small businesses are one or two people companies who are trying to do everything all at the same time. Adding a web page every day to their website is real hard work and sadly is not seen as a business priority.
If you are stuck in this rut and haven’t updated your website for a while, it might be time to add some user generated content facilities.
User generated content simply put, is allowing your site visitors to add their content to your site. It may be some feedback on a product or review. It could be a posting on your website forum. How about letting visitors post articles to your site or allowing them to add themselves to your business directory.
Can you see how this can boost the interactivity of your website and show that it is constantly being updated? Search Engines, in particular, like a constantly updated website. The more you update, the more often they will send their search engine spiders and crawlers to visit your site.
Don’t get me wrong though, there is still a bit of work to do, you will have to manage and approve what content is to be put live but an hour approving 20 or 30 pages of new unique content must be a good thing. Can you think how long it will take to create that amount of content? 20 – 30 hours if you write as slowly as me!
Okay , so what can I do to add some User Generated Content to my Site?
Here are a few ideas for content generation. Where possible I have also added links to get some free scripts that you can use.
Article Content
You could allow users to submit articles to your site. You could then use these on your website or newsletter. You could use a tool such as www.ArticleDashboard.com, a Free PHP script which can build a Article Directory complete with author management tools.
Having a large selection of articles rated to your specific niche can only be a good thing and provide your visitors with some great content and a fresh perspective. You can advertise for Authors or ask others in your industry.
Experts would be able to sign themselves up with an account and start submitting articles. You would adjust need to spend a few minutes approving or declining before publishing.
Forums
One thing that gets a site interactive quicker than anything else is the addition of a Forum or Bulletin Board.
Giving Visitors a platform to discuss your product, services and marketplace in general is a great way to build traffic. Some sites even use a facility to build and send out newsletters to their registered users based upon their Forums. Try www.phpbb.com which is a very high powered piece of software which is FREE to use.
Guestbooks
While not as popular anymore, there is nothing stopping you using a Guestbook to drive more content to your site. Ask people to stop by and leave a comment. Make sure you police it though!
You may find you web hosting can complete with a GuestBook Script. Normally these are CGI or PHP scripts.
Visit Focal Media for Guest Friend, a CGI Script. You can use GuestBooks in many different ways, just because it is a Guest Book Script doesn’t mean you have to use it as such. You could use it to post site updates or product info snippets. You could use it to build up Testimonials
Comment Scripts
With the advent of Blogs came the ability to leave a comment on your posts which helped build the content on your site. Now, there are scripts around that you can add to your site pages, such as article or product review pages, and allow visitors to leave comments.
This then means that your pages are changing constantly and a changing page is as good as a new page for the search engine spiders. I have not found a good free script but there is a good low cost script. Visit www.InstantSiteComments.com. Robert Blackstone’s script is easy to install and very powerful.
Build a Directory
Why not build a useful directory of associated or complimentary businesses. Let companies add their own details. Some scripts allow descriptions of up to 1000 words and these can be split into seperate pages. Try www.ocportal.com, www.phplinkdirectory.com or www.cplinks.com for a FREE version to get you started.
Keep the directory tight to your product area. Don’t try and mimic Yahoo! or DMOZ. Build a quality Niche Directory. Less truly is more! Invite sites you want to appear in the directory to submit their details. Don;t do it form them. Let them write their own content.
Blogs
We touched on the ability of blogs earlier. Adding blog to your site allows you to add content from anywhere in the world as long as you have web access. The other benefit is that you can allow anyone to post to your blog. This builds content and changes pages constantly. Try www.blogger.com, www.typepad.com or www.wordpress.org for free Blogging Software.
News Feeds and RSS
What better way to add new content your site than adding a newsfeed to your site. This could be a third party feed which headlines appearing on your site and when they update the news, then your feed will change. You could however, write your own news feed or hire a writer to summarise important news stories in your speciality on a daily basis.
You could then run your own RSS (News) feed which other sites can use on their sites. This gains you more exposure for your site. A true win win! You can get a low cost news script service which allows you to create a RSS feed AND has a online content management tool visit www.newsscript.co.uk or you could use the RSS functions of a Blogging tool such as Wordpress.
In summary
While this is not an exclusive list, I think there is more than enough ways here to add one or two elements to increase the perceived activity on your website. Think creatively and I’m sure you can put a spin on a few of these things for your needs. The only investment to get these services up and running is a little time or if you need technical assistance a little money….
Trust me it is a worthwhile investment…
