Your website creates people’s first impression of you online. They form their opinion of you based on your voice and image, which are reflected in your website. With this in mind, you want to ensure that your website’s content is striking and valuable so that customers keep returning.
As such, it can be tempting to use other people’s work, especially if you’re not that skilled in making illustrations, creating videos, or writing articles. But this will not go down well with potential customers who know what you’re showing them is someone else’s work.
This severe offense is called plagiarism, which can affect the trustworthiness and credibility of your website. If you keep plagiarizing other authors’ work, it can lead to legal action and a lower rank in search engine ranking pages (SERPs).
Aside from plagiarism, publishing generic content can affect your website’s search engine optimization (SEO). Online users won’t be able to distinguish your blogs from other content all over the Internet, which can decrease traffic and conversions on your website. This may also mean losing profits from prospective consumers because you can’t capture their attention.
To avoid these issues, here’s an eight-item list of strategies to prevent publishing generic, plagiarized content for your website:
1. Use A Plagiarism Checker
Creating revenue focused content not only entails generating content that influences pipeline and revenue. You should also ensure that it’s free from plagiarism so that it can be shared on social media. This way, you increase your website’s credibility, and people will trust it more than if they think you are merely copying someone else’s work.
Numerous online tools can help you determine if you unintentionally copied from other sources. You can use a plagiarism checker, which scans your blog for duplicate or plagiarized content. After collecting such insights, you’ll receive a complete report containing all the links from other blogs.
With this tool, you can remove any flagged content so that your website is free from copyright infringement issues, boosting your credibility.
2. Write Intriguing Headlines
If you want your website to stand out from other blogs, you should grab the attention of online users. You must write intriguing headlines so that search engines can rank your site higher whenever you publish the content. This also helps you attract organic web traffic since users become more interested in your content than other generic blogs on the SERPs.
You can use keywords in the headline and subheadline to help increase traffic and ranking. Search engines look at organic and paid search results when ranking websites. Therefore, if your headline contains a keyword relevant to your website, it’s ranked higher than other similar sites that don’t include this keyword in their headlines or subheadlines.
You can also make your headlines intriguing by providing value to them. For instance, you may include how the readers can benefit from the content or the products and services you’re selling. This can help drive traffic back to your site and increase blog engagement.
3. Use Different Sources
Some writers often stick to only one to two sources when writing content. This means that they’re likely to spin existing articles online and lead to plagiarism.
An excellent way to avoid this is by using different sources and conducting in-depth research before writing the article. You may also create outlines first. Avoid following your sources’ subheadlines as well because it also leads to article spinning. You can use a combination of three or five sources and choose the best ones for your topic.
4. Create A Content Style Guide
When most online users visit your site, they expect your tone to be consistent throughout your blogs. If there’s no consistency, they can quickly get bored or frustrated, and you can lose their trust.
You can avoid this by creating a style guide for the content. This document defines the tone for all of the content on your website. It describes what kind of language you use regarding facts and opinions, articles, and interviews. It also includes the preferred format for each post so that everything looks uniform and readable.
You must create a set of standards for every article on your website so that there’s consistency in language and tone. You can choose from various tones, including sarcastic, friendly, emotional, funny, or professional. The critical thing is that the tone must be consistent from one article to another so that readers know what to expect.
The tone can even be a selling point. For example, if you give tips on marketing using a funny tone, readers may gravitate toward your site. They may prefer it over other online sources that are too technical when imparting knowledge about the topic.
When you have a style guide, you have a clear idea of what content you should be producing for your site. This makes writing new, relevant, and exciting pieces manageable for you.
5. Provide A Solution For Readers
Most online users browse search engines to find answers to their questions. With all the options, it can be hard for them to pick a blog since most articles are generic. This can also be challenging for a content creator like you since your prospects may miss out on your blogs if they think it’s generic.
You can make your content stand out by providing a firm solution for readers. For example, tell them what product suits their need if you want them to buy from your website. If they want to learn more about a specific topic, then offer a detailed guide.
You can even add a call to action (CTA) at the end of your article so that your readers know they have to do something after reading the article. CTAs may include ‘share this post on social media,’ ‘subscribe to our email list,’ or ‘buy this book now.’ CTA can keep your readers engaged and increase the likelihood that they’ll buy your products or services.
6. Get Rid Of Jargon
One mistake writers make is using industry jargon to make their articles look professional and authoritative. While this may work for industries such as law or medicine, this won’t work if you intend regular readers to visit your website for a solution. If you continue using useless jargon in your content, your audience won’t understand it and may leave your site to look elsewhere.
Instead of using industry jargon, you should use plain language to make your content more accessible to the readers. You may use online content readability tools that follow formulas, such as Flesch Reading Ease Score, Fry Readability Graph, or Robert Gunning Fog Index.
You can scan and check your document to see if it contains many words that are hard to read or understand and make the necessary changes.
For instance, if you’re marketing to teenagers and they’re looking for information about how to use certain products they want to buy online, then straightforward language is appropriate. In doing so, your target readers can understand the details you’re providing them. Because they can understand your messages, you increase your chances of persuading your leads to purchase your products.
7. Avoid Keyword Stuffing
Another familiar mistake writers make is overstuffing their content with keywords. This means they use too many terms or terms unrelated to their article’s topic to reach higher ranks on SERPs.
They do this by repeating the exact words that disrupt the text flow or even hiding the keywords through text embedding without font color. This can affect their SEO techniques since search engines use algorithms to determine which pages deserve to rank higher in search results.
To avoid keyword stuffing, you can increase your content’s body text. For instance, if you intend to write 500 words, you may expand it to 1,000 for proper keyword distribution. This way, the article flows naturally, improving its SEO results and helping your site rank better on search engines.
8. Include Original Visuals
Some writers believe copying another author’s text is the only form of plagiarism. They don’t know that using a copyrighted image or video online also falls under this offense. That’s why most of them take visuals from the Internet and use it as their own without the consent of their rightful owners. This affects their SEO because they may be penalized.
An excellent way to avoid such issues is by using original visuals in your content. You can hire an illustrator to create vector artwork that fits your content. An alternative is using stock photos, adequately citing the source, and offering to pay a minimal fee. This creates an impression that you’re a genuine company, which can help you gain the trust of people who visit your website.
Key Takeaway
What you publish on your website can affect your brand’s reputation and online presence. If you continue to use or spin existing content from other sources online, you’re not taking the time to research new topics and develop unique content. This also means that your target readers won’t see any value in your posts since duplicating shows that you’re not knowledgeable.
Thus, avoid copying others’ work. Instead of plagiarism, try reaching out to the rightful owners and ask if you can use their materials on your website with proper credits. In the same vein, avoid publishing generic content. The best and most honest way to improve your website’s reputation and search engine rankings is by creating original content.
