Having user-generated content on your website can boost brand awareness and credibility, but from an SEO point of view, it also provides lots of benefits. Here are just a few.
Content is king
Any savvy web owner knows that content is king, but when that content comes from those who buy from you, its regal status is even more powerful. According to Business 2 Community, user-generated content includes messages from your users in the form of blog posts, testimonials, online reviews and social shares.
Search engines love fresh and unique content, and when users create unique content that is regularly added to your site in these types of formats, it can send your search ranking soaring. A website that actively encourages user-generated content gives the impression to search engines that it values its users’ opinions. This content can also provide a more detailed way for search engines to crawl and evaluate your site to establish its ranking position.
The other advantage of user-generated content is that you can use this as inspiration for content that you provide yourself on your site. By scrutinising reviews or comments, you might be able to glean new content ideas that you could cover on your blog, particularly if these relate to topics or specific problems that customers keep mentioning.
Image content
Adding images to your website can be beneficial for SEO, so when users include images that may relate to reviews or testimonials, this has a positive impact on your visibility and search ranking. It is especially beneficial if users search for content by image.
Sourcing long-tail keywords
If you are working with a web development company in London such as https://www.redsnapper.net/web-development-services-london on your SEO campaigns, sourcing keywords will be part of this task. The great thing about including user-generated content on your site, such as user reviews, comments and forum discussions, is that you will be able to easily see what specific words customers use to talk about your products or services. These are excellent sources for generating new long-tail keywords for your next SEO campaign.
Rich snippets
Reviews posted on your site can be used by search engines to display search results as previews, which can include star ratings. These rich snippets can help drive traffic to your site and increase click-through rates by as much as 30 per cent.