An ongoing challenge for webmasters today is to provide fresh
content that gives visitors a reason to return to their site.
Unless you have a full-time staff dedicated to creating regular
content, the time involved can be crippling.
Wouldn't it be great if someone else would write timely,
relevant content for you? Sure, but what are the odds of that
happening? Well, many webmasters are already enjoying this
phenomenon, and I'm happy to count myself among them.
Set it up. Whether your site has a catalog of products or a
collection of articles, you can design your pages to allow
visitors to post reviews of whatever is featured on the page.
They can share their experiences with items they've bought or
post comments on the information in your site. Don't confuse
this powerful tool with a discussion forum. You create the topic
of each page, and encourage visitors to post updates with the
latest information in this area.
The more information you provide on your site, the better
service you are providing to your visitors; but they aren't the
only ones who benefit from including reviews. It's also a boon
to you as a webmaster. Even if you never wrote another line of
new copy, your pages will continue to grow with relevant
content. Granted you still have to spend a little time reading
the reviews and moderating what appears on your site, but the
time required is much less than you would spend writing original
content.
Why someone else will create content for you. While the
advantages to the webmaster and reader may be obvious, you are
probably wondering what incentives exist for the reviewer. A few
lucky souls have enough free time to share their opinions online
for the mere satisfaction of seeing their own words, but most
will need something more tangible before they invest the time to
write a useful review. The onus is on you, the webmaster, to
create an appropriate incentive. The importance of link
popularity in search engine rankings provides a powerful clue.
At AffiliateScreen.com, I allow my visitors to post reviews of
their experiences with online affiliate programs. At the bottom
of their review, they have the option of including a link to
another page that supports what they've written (or they can
simply include their affiliate link for the program).
AffiliateScreen.com gives them the additional credibility of
their expertise appearing on a third-party site.
Look at this from the reviewer's perspective. Here's a unique
opportunity to gain an external link pointing to the reviewer's
website, but this is far more valuable than a random reciprocal
link. Search engines are determining link popularity by
examining both the quantity and relevance of links. The page
with their link is loaded with keywords related to the product
or service, and the reviewer can include additional relevant
keywords in their post. The reviewer actually has a hand in
creating the page that will link to their site. This is
extremely powerful! Can you begin to see how anyone looking to
increase traffic to their site would jump at the opportunity to
create content for your website?
Now you may have some concerns that allowing anyone to add
content and links to your site is inviting your competitors to
steal your traffic. If your site has detailed reviews of
products on your site, anyone who leaves your site to visit a
competitor won't spend much time there before realizing that
your site has useful, original content that they can't find
anywhere else. If that doesn't put your mind at ease, though,
there's nothing to stop you from including a disclaimer when
someone submits a review. Explain in this disclaimer that direct
references to your competitors will be removed to keep the
reviews informative and to avoid marketing hype. You are the
webmaster, after all.
You can draw even more traffic by allowing visitors to rate the
usefulness of each review. Many reviewers will encourage people
to visit your site so they can read and rate the review. More
important than just being a gimmick to increase traffic, rating
reviews allows you to sort them by quality and expose your
average visitors to the best possible content first.
Promote it! Once you've got the code in place, it's important to
publicize this new feature of your website. If you have
experience or know someone with experience writing press
releases, you may be able to garner attention from news and
niche media. Another highly effective form of publicity is to
mention the new feature above the fold on the main page of your
site.
If you have a newsletter, promote the review process in your
next issue. In fact, as you begin to accumulate reviews, they
can serve as great additional content for your newsletter.
Simply include the best reviews in each issue. As with the
reviews on your website, you are providing valuable content for
your audience, giving your reviewer great exposure, and saving
time for yourself. It's a win-win-win situation.
About the author:
Copyright (c) 2003-2004 Clay Mabbitt. Clay Mabbitt writes
articles about online income opportunities. He is the founder of
a community of Internet entrepreneurs sharing knowledge and
experience at http://www.affiliatescreen.com
