3 Ways To Get The Most Out Of User-Generated Content with Chris Burres and Matthew Bertram #432

Merging related UGC pages into a single consolidation page concentrates authority and relevance. Wall Street Oasis achieved a 32% boost in search traffic after doing this. Combining consolidation with updated title and H1 tags can push combined gains into the 20 to 23 percent range.

According to the episode, product purchases are most positively influenced by reviews with an average star rating between 4.2 and 4.5. Excessively high ratings are seen as suspicious by shoppers, so a perfect five-star average can actually reduce buyer confidence.

Reviews should be collected consistently over time rather than in short bursts. A sudden spike in reviews followed by zero new ones looks unnatural to Google. Building review requests into your standard business process creates a steady, natural velocity that avoids that problem.

Content curation means collecting, organizing, reworking, and republishing content created by others or your audience. Running photo or story contests where users submit content, as National Geographic does with its Your Shot campaign, can generate backlinks and traffic while making the user the star.