UGC: Scaling Up SEO Success

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Meet… Me!

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What we’ll cover What is it? Expanding definitions Why it matters Setting & scaling up When & where can we get it

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Listen… There’s more to UGC than you might think.

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What marketing thinks UGC is #1 #2

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What SEO thinks UGC is (usually) #3 #4

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No content

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More UGC examples: https://thegray.company/blog/user-generated-content-examples

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Cool, but why should I care? ● Brand awareness ● Social proof ● Site traffic ● Partnership opps ● Link building opps ● Free content! ● AUTHENTIC content customized to real human experiences

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SGE, *cough cough* maybe? *hint hint* More details: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how- ugc-help-you-optimize-googles-sea rch-generative-experience-gray/ https://blog.google/products/search/ generative-ai-search/

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We think you should love UGC, too.

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Okay, okay I want it. When can I get it? Brand Affinity Relevancy Incentives! Shelf Life

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HOW do I make this all happen?

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Ask Yourself: ● Who’s the target audience? ● What sorts of content are they engaging with today? ● Can you identify any existing user demand (maybe via search query data)? ● Can UGC fulfill this demand effectively (fully or partially)? ● …. Or, does an existing UGC create SEO problems you need to solve?

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If your UGC program can grow…

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Think Through: Permissions ● Confirm and explicitly get permission to publish, promote, or share the content for marketing purposes. ● Get confirmation of ownership. ● Set guidelines for tagging and accreditation, and republishing permissions. ● Stated ownership ≠ (inherently) real ownership

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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

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Think Through: Enabling Quality Submissions ● Define & enable compelling/helpful/insightful forms and fields ● Consider character limitations, minimums, and required fields ● Give examples, show value, and consider incentives

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Think Through: On-page Optimization ● Leverage dynamic fields ● … and don’t forget schema!

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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 those?

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Think Through: Indexing ● Avoid: thin, duplicate content ● Automation of: ○ Robots Meta ○ Canonical ○ Robots.txt ● Considering things like: ○ Required minimums, in required fields ○ Submittor popularity ○ Item like/engagement ● Manual overrides!