Winning SGE with User-Generated Content

Find Tory's deck from her latest Clearscope Webinar about the connection between SGE, AI and UGC.

Watch the event here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlYulpC7wzk&list=PLD7lCUw0SFlNX4jYwEkcqQktJwElAfy1B&index=17

Transcript

1. Winning SGE with User-Generated Content
2. Meet… me!
3. What we’ll cover The AI & SGE landscape Why & how UGC can help How to launch It What to make
4. What’s happening?
5. (2019-2022) Everyone’s talking about TikTok
6. (2019-2022) Everyone’s adding “on Reddit”
7. (2022) Hello, “Voices” More: https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-discussions-forums-news/
8. (2023) Hello, SGE More: https://blog.google/products/search/generative-ai-search/
9. (2023) Hello, Perspectives More: https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-perspectives/
10. (2024) Hello, Forums
11. (2024) Hello, Reddit
12. But… why?
13. Information gain
14. Turns out people like… people
15. UGC connects the dots for Google (and users, too)
16. Enter… UGC
17. What… is it, again?
18. Meaningful product reviews More on SGE & UGC: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-ugc-help-you-optimize-googles-search-generative -experience-gray/
20. More UGC examples: https://thegray.company/blog/user-generated-content-examples
21. Ask yourself… • Who’s the target audience? • What sorts of content do they engage with today? • Can you identify any existing, perhaps under-served user demand? • How effectively does that tie to your user’s journey? • Can UGC fulfill this demand effectively (fully or partially)... • …or, does existing UGC create SEO problems you need to solve?
22. For what benefit?
23. How does it help me? SEO Partner- ships Brand Marketing
24. … how, exactly?
25. Business Logistics
26. Think through… Separating Brand-Content from User-Content Ensure users can quickly & easily differentiate the things that your brand created, vs. your user base.
27. Think through… Brand perception Where • Image use • URL setting • Header & page copy setting What • The usual suspects - profanity, nudity, politics, general hatred How • Policies & permissions • Automated checking & filtering • User-driven enforcement • Manual review • Visual design
28. Think through… Permissions • Confirm and explicitly get permission to publish, promote, or share the content for marketing purposes. • Set guidelines for tagging, accreditation, and republishing permissions. • Ask users to confirm that they own the content they share.
29. Think through… Spam & scams • Opportunity ◦ Will you allow links? ◦ Can they contact your users? • Developer-led ◦ User verification: Emails, 2FA ◦ Akismet (Captcha!) ◦ Planning & research: patterns to block/isolate ◦ Monitoring & response • User–led ◦ Moderators ◦ Reporting mechanisms
30. Quality, at scale
31. Think through… Prompting quality submissions • Define & enable compelling/helpful/insightful forms and fields • Consider character limitations, minimums, and required fields • Give examples, show value, and consider incentives
32. Think through… On-page optimization • Leverage dynamic fields • … and don’t forget schema!
33. Think through… Content groupings • If your UGC program will scale, how will you organize it into helpful … ◦ Landing pages? ◦ Facets & filters? ◦ Categorization? • How can you optimize them?
34. Think through… Indexing • Avoid thin, duplicate content • Automate: ◦ Robots Meta ◦ Canonical ◦ Robots.txt • Consider things like: ◦ Required minimums in required fields ◦ Submittor popularity ◦ Item like/engagement • Include manual overrides
35. Maximizing Return
36. Think through… Utilizing user sharing
37. Think through… Measuring impact
38. Teamwork
39. Think through… The needs of other channels & stakeholders
40. Think through… Providing value to your users, and in turn, your business
41. Let’s meet! Tory Gray CEO, Gray Dot Co @ToryGray @ToryLynne @GrayDotCo
42. Thank You!