Content curation is one of the biggest trends in content development, and there are several reasons for that. It takes less time than traditional content development. You simply link to other people’s content, perhaps with a short excerpt, and add your own unique commentary. It gives you content ideas you might not have thought of on your own. Browsing websites in your niche will let you find all sorts of ideas quickly and easily. Google loves it when you link out to other sites. It’s not all about backlinks, anymore. Now it benefits you to link TO quality sites. But there are a few pitfalls you might fall into when using content curation on your website. This guide is going to discuss some of those common mistakes people make, and how you can avoid making them on your own site.
You’ll find out how to avoid potential legal problems, how to avoid mistakes that might upset Google and get your site penalized, and how to be sure you’re using content curation properly.
FAILING TO GIVE PROPER ATTRIBUTION
Content curation is something that straddles the line of copyright infringement if it isn’t done correctly. Considering you could face thousands of dollars in fines if you are found guilty of infringing on someone else’s copyright, it’s vital to be certain you’re properly attributing all content.
Here are some ways to be sure you’re following best practices as far as attribution:
• Do not post other people content in its entirety. Use excerpts, posting only small parts of their content and adding your own commentary.
• Be sure you mention the original source of the content, and ideally link to the original article. This is beneficial for your SEO, too.
• When using photos, be sure you use only a thumbnail unless you ask for permission first. Thumbnail images (according to Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp in the U.S. Court of Appeals) fall under fair use.
• Don’t use no-follow on links. People deserve full link juice for your use of their content.
USING ONLY CURATED CONTENT
First of all, Google loves unique content. Yes, they love when you link to other high-quality websites too. But unique content will always trump curated content. It’s never a good idea to post solely curated content on your website. It’s a great idea to post high-quality, original content, too.
Find a good balance. You should aim for at least 10% original content to balance out your curated content and make sure those posts are high quality and have at least 500-1000 words (the longer the better as far as Google is concerned, they love long posts!)
You can use a plugin to break your content up into multiple pages for your visitors while still showing as one long article to Google. Or you can use the “Blog pages show at most” value in WordPress.
ADDING NO VALUE
One of the biggest mistakes people make with curating content is when they post nothing but curated content, or links to other people’s content, without adding any value. Not only is this bad for your users, it’s also terrible as far as SEO is concerned. Search engines need words on the page to index content. While Google can index videos and other types of content, they still need some content to determine context. This means you need to add some commentary that contains a keyword to two in order to get the best SEO benefit possible.
Plus, if you’re posting curated content without adding any value, it’s pretty much just scraping. You can’t expect to post nothing but an excerpt of someone else’s content and for that to be enough for visitors and search engines and you can’t expect to post their full content without being seen as a thief. Be sure you’re using only links or excerpt and adding value by describing the content or adding your own unique spin on things. This will improve user experience as well as offering unique content for SEO purposes.
USING THE SAME FEW SOURCES
One trap a lot of webmasters and bloggers fall into is using the same few websites on a regular basis, thus limiting their scope as far as content and SEO benefits. Sure, you’ll probably want to pull most of your content from a few trusted sources, but it’s important to seek other sources from time to time, as well.
It’s tempting to fall into this trap because you know the sources you’re using are posting only high quality content on a regular basis, and you trust those sources. But if you’re only linking to those same places, you won’t get as much SEO benefit and your visitors may just start going directly to those sources instead of your site because they see the same ones again and again.
Pinterest is a great place to find potential content, because it’s all organized by keywords and it’s represented visually, making it faster to find what you’re looking for. Plus, there is content from thousands of sites in pretty much any niche.
Facebook is another perfect place to locate different sources. Just locate a few fan pages or groups in your niche and watch what is being shared. This is especially true if you’re looking at fan pages that are NOT run by website owners.
HAVING NO CALL TO ACTION
Every piece of content you write should have some sort of call to action in it that benefits you in some way.
Here are some calls to action that you might want to consider:
• And, of course, asking readers to buy a recommended product
• Asking readers to follow you on social media
• Asking readers to join your mailing list
• Asking readers to share your content on social media
• Asking readers to subscribe to your YouTube channel
One thing I’ve seen a lot of people doing that you should avoid is asking people to click your ads, especially those that pay per click. No advertiser wants traffic that is clicking only to support your website and has no interest in their product or service. Even companies that pay per sale or commission don’t want unproductive traffic. Make sure you get value out of each and every piece of content you post, even if it’s just asking people to comment on the article. You want to get people used to doing what you ask them to do, especially when it comes time to sell them something!
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