Generating User-Generated Content

Blogs are a great way to get your voice out there and share your opinion. However, if you’re an Internet Marketer or an affiliate, you know blogs are also useful for branding and providing information about products and services.

Constantly updating your site can be hard, and having a blog is a good way to refresh content without reworking all your pages. But posting everyday can be difficult too; sometimes you just don’t seem to have much to say.

Planning is important, and writing posts in advance can help so you have a surplus when writer’s block strikes. But this is also when user-generated content can come in handy.

User-generated content refers to any content that is produced or supplied by your website users or blog readers.

It’s a great way to open your site to your readers and engage them. It’s also a great way to get fresh content which can get your page spidered more often.

And, when you’re struggling to come up with something to write, you can turn the tables and ask your readers what they think.

Polls, contests, Q&A’s photo submissions, even poetry contests are forms of user-generated content. They’re also great ways to get return visitors, as people will want to know what was else submitted or who won.

Like nearly everything in business and Internet marketing, you’ll need a strategy. To generate user-generated content, you need to entice people to comment on your site.

First and foremost, you need to make it easy for your readers to comment. That means adjusting you permissions structure, and making it clear that site visitors are welcome to comment on what they read.

Opening up comments is great, but it does mean a commitment from you. People don’t always play nice online, so setting up a rules page and setting boundaries is a good idea. Let your readers know what will get a comment deleted, and try and be fair.

You can also ask your readers to register if they want to comment. There are widgets and plugins that can help you set up this feature on your site. This can provide you a bit of security, and give you a chance to build an email list.

Now that they’re registered or able to comment, getting your readers to leave a comment is another issue. There are plenty of widget and plugin polls, which can be a good way to start.

Keep in mind when you are writing that you want a response. You can pose questions in your post and ask straightforwardly for other to share their experiences. Or you can go controversial, and see if riling up your readers gets them typing.

It will take time to develop regular user-generated content. And of course, you’ll want to make sure your blog has enough readers for there to be a response. But once you’ve got your followers giving you feedback, you’ll be more connected and inspired than ever before.