As a Elopement Wedding Vendor we know that coming up with new and exciting content for your blog can be a challenge and when you see an interesting elopement topic here on WhereToElope.com or on another source, it can be tempting to copy and paste it on to your own blog or website for your readers to enjoy. However, as shown in the image below, this is a sure fire way to run afoul of Google’s Penguin algorithm, and is likely to result in a ranking penalty for creating duplicate content on your website! But, we wanted you to know the good news is that there is an easy way to make use of other people’s content without taking a hit to your Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP) rankings and it is called ‘content curation‘! Let us explain how you can use content curation to come up with some exciting new content for your elopement or wedding blog.
What is Content Curation?
Content Curation is the act of taking existing content from the web and presenting it to your own readers, without making a direct copy of it. You could collate several blog posts on a similar topic and present them as a resource list for your readers, or you could take one particular piece of content, article or blog for example and offer a response or addendum to it with your own views on the topic.
Let us share with you an extract from our own blogging guidelines that all of our WhereToElope.com bloggers follow when they are creating new content for us.
“When appropriate you can quote another blog or article in the topic (FIRST) paragraph QUOTING NO MORE THAN 14 WORDS) if we use proper quotations, give the original AUTHOR credit by including their NAME, TITLE and a permalink (HYPERLINK) back to their blog or website and a statement encouraging our readers to read the full blog or article for more information. Then CREATE 2-3 additional paragraphs should AGREE or DISAGREE with the statements in the topic paragraph and ADD VALUE. Then add a summary paragraph.”
NOTE: In fact, our Bloggers also must scan all of their blogs or article submissions, like this example, on a Plagiarism website we use to make sure that they do not contain Any Duplicated Content!
What this essentially means is COPY AND PASTE is NOT OKAY, but that you can take a short pull out “quote” from the original content that you have sourced, provide proper credit to the author and a link to that post and then summarize the content while also giving your own opinions. A great example of this in action is our ‘6 Reasons to Elope‘ blog, where we offered our own insights on each of the reasons suggested in a blog by Chelsey Grasso over at Bustle.
How to Curate Relevant Content
So, now that you know what content curation is and have an idea of how to go about it, you might be wondering where to find content that is worth curating for your blog. Here are a few great ideas of where to source content.
- Google Alerts – The very first thing you need to do if you haven’t done so already is to set up google alerts for your main keywords. This will deliver a summary of all relevant news and articles to your inbox daily. Set aside some time each day to monitor these alerts for interesting content that you can make use of.
- Social Media – It is important to spend time in the places that your target audience is hanging out in when they are online. That means social networks. Check out the #hashtags relevant to your industry and search your keywords regularly. If you come across an interesting article don’t just re-tweet it – add your own opinion too!
- RSS Readers – If you are using a RSS Reader to keep up to date with your favorite wedding industry blogs then you can also use it to gather content for a content curation blog!
These tips should set you well on your way to creating your own content curation blogs, giving you the opportunity to create fresh content that won’t be penalized by Google. If you need further assistance, don’t forget to check out our Elopement Vendor training section for additional guidance.
Please let us know if you have any questions about Blogging or Content Curation by leaving a Comment below or by sending an email to me at: info@wheretoelope.com.