Samuel Johnson once said, “No man was ever great by imitation.” Though this was written centuries before the dawn of the Internet and modern marketing strategies, it still applies today. When it comes to marketing your business on the web, nothing is more important than fresh web content. When this content is scraped from other sources or duplicated across multiple platforms, it is harming your business more than you think.
What is Duplicate and Scraped Web Content?
Duplicate content is the publishing of new content on every web platform you subscribe to, including your website, blog, and social media pages.
Scraped content is the publishing of the work of others (even from reputable sources) across your web platforms.
Why Duplicate and Scraped Content are Harmful
An essential aspect of web marketing is search engine optimization (SEO). This process involves multiple techniques to ensure that your web pages come up at the top of search engine results. This makes it easier for potential customers to find (and therefore patronize) your business.
Each search engine uses a specific algorithm to determine which results are most important. Marketing specialists capitalize on these unique algorithms to influence listed rankings. These professionals ensure that your pages come up first when a potential customer searches for you or your services.
When content is duplicated or scraped, a search engine’s algorithm may not be able to determine which result is more important. Thus, you may not see your content listed very high in the rankings.
How to Avoid Duplicate or Scraped Content
To keep your search engine rankings high, try the following techniques:
1. Don’t republish your work on every web platform. Instead, post a short synopsis along with a link to the original piece (whether it be on your blog or website).
2. Don’t repost the work of others. While linking to high-quality sources within your content can help your SEO strategy, it is important that everything you post is freshly written.
3. Don’t copy and paste your information to each platform. Instead, make each site unique by creating new, but similar bios for each site.
New, fresh, and meaningful content is an important part of your web marketing strategy. Online users look for relevant content to give them answers to their questions, as well as the information they want on the products or services they are looking for. Choosing to keep a blog or publishing weekly articles can make all the difference for your online business. For more information on content writing, please feel free to contact us at Web Content Development.
