To build a successful website, you must regularly publish high-quality content that’s aligned with the interests of your target audience. If your website only has a few generic articles, it probably won’t attract or retain many visitors. High-quality content, on the other hand, turns your website into a valuable resource, resulting in more traffic and better performance.
Unfortunately, creating high-quality content from scratch is a tedious process. According to a HubSpot study, it takes webmasters an average of one to two hours to create an otherwise short 500-word article. Based on these findings, a 1,500-word article can take up to six hours to create. You can create high-quality content more quickly, however, by curating it from other sources.
What Is Content Curation?
Content curation is a digital marketing process that involves collecting content from one or more sources, updating it with new information and then publishing it on your website. Rather than creating an article from scratch, for example, you can copy an excerpt from an existing article published on another website, add your personal thoughts about the subject and publish it on your website.
Curated Content vs Syndicated Content: What’s the Difference?
Many webmasters assume curated content is the same as syndicated content While both types of content are taken from external sources, they aren’t the same. Syndicated content refers to content that’s copied, word for word, from one website and published on another website. Curated content, on the other hand, refers to content that was copied but enhanced with new information before being published.
The problem with syndicated content is that it’s considered duplicate content by Google. If you copy and republish an entire article, Google may not index it. And if Google does index it, the syndicated content will probably rank low.
Publishing syndicated content on your website may also leave you, as well as your business, susceptible to legal action. It’s illegal to copy and use someone else’s content without the creator’s permission. Granted, some webmasters encourage others to syndicate their content, and many do it. Unless you have a webmaster’s permission, you can’t legally syndicate content from his or her website.
Curated content avoids issues associated with duplicate content and copyright infringement. After updating a curated article or blog post with new information, it should only contain a small portion of copied content. Furthermore, you can use quotation marks around the copied content so that visitors don’t mistake your website as being the original creator.
Choose Relevant, Popular Topics
You should curate content that’s relevant to your website and highly sought after by your website’s target audience. Browse through some of your competitors’ content to see what they’ve published. If a particular article or blog is relevant to your website and has a substantial number of comments, social media shares or other engagement signals, you may want to curate it.
Enclose Copied Sections of Copied Content in Quotation Marks
Always enclose sections of copied content in quotation marks. Without quotation marks, visitors will assume either you or someone else who’s affiliated with your website created the content, which could be grounds for trademark infringement. By placing quotation marks before and after the copied text, visitors will recognize the content as an excerpt from another website.
Add New Information to Curated Content
Before publishing curated content on your website, update it with new information. The content should be at least 75 percent unique. If you curate a 100-word paragraph from another website, for instance, you should add at least 300 words of new information to it. Otherwise, search engines like Google will perceive it as duplicate content, resulting in low or nonexistent rankings.
Curate From Reputable and Trustworthy Sources
It’s important to curate content from reputable and trustworthy sources. With the rise of fake news, you can’t believe everything you see online. Some websites publish inaccurate content specifically to sell a product or service, whereas others publish inaccurate content to attract clicks and increase their visibility. If you’re thinking about curating content from a particular website, check the website’s background to ensure it’s a reputable and trustworthy source.
Add Unique Images
Without images, curated content published on your website probably won’t perform well. Images increase the readability of text by serving as visual stopping points. If a piece of curated content consists only of text, visitors may struggle to read it. Search engines will notice the content’s poor engagement signals, which may prompt them to rank it low in their index. Therefore, you should add at least one image to your website’s curated content.
Create a New Title
Give each piece of curated content a new title. Don’t just reuse the same title from the source. Instead, create a new title that describes what the curated content is about.
Follow these tips to create effective titles for your website’s curated content:
- Include the main keyword for which you want the curated content to rank at the beginning of the title.
- Format titles in title case. If you’re unfamiliar with title case, use the tool at titlecase.com.
- Use a minimum of 40 characters and a maximum of 60 characters.
- If there’s enough space, mention the source from which the content was curated.
Cite Curation Sources
When publishing curated content on your website, always cite the source from which you acquired it. To cite a source, mention the original website’s brand name before or after the quoted section of content. You can simply precede a quote with the phrase “according to [source’s brand name].”
To finalize the citation, include a link pointing to the specific web page from which the content was curated. Whether you use WordPress or any other common content management system (CMS) or web builder, you should be able to highlight the source’s brand name and enter a link URL.
You don’t have to create all your website’s content from scratch. Curating content from other sources offers an easy and effective way to fill your website with high-quality content. Just remember to choose the right topics, enclose copied sections in quotation marks, add new information, curate from reputable sources and cite sources.