Controversial Content

It appears that some people actually get the idea of unique content.  The entire concept of unique content is something that most SEO firms fail by miles.   We have seen this happen many times prior.   Building a site that is just rehashed content from others would fail to qualify as unique.   Real content would really mean something that no one else has thought of,  a new approach.  In the above mentioned article they quote the following:

 As an example, I saw a site selling internet services that was not a “big brand”. The site had seen a ton of complaints about people trying to cancel service with one of their larger competitors. So, the non big brand site wrote a cancellation guide for canceling service with their competitor.

Not only is the content ranking in the engines because no one else had thought to do it prior to them, but they received a lot of links on message boards, homepages and blogs as well as traffic from frustrated customers of their competitor who happened to be in the market for a new internet provider.

Well that in my opinion defines unique content.  It’s something that others have not thought of,  or don’t want you to know.  The latter of course tends to be far more intresting.

We at Yooter generally feel that unique content is simpally another term for controversial content.  Meaning content that someone doesn’t want you to know.  There is a reason that sites such as The Drudge Report are monsters in size and scope,  and it’s not breaking news it’s the controversial nature of those topics.   For example a Breaking Political News forum with a no censorship policy such as SqlSpace tends to grow at massive rates while more establish sites tend to lag in growth rates.

It’s not the content or the news,  it’s the controversial nature of the topics.   When we say controversial we are not saying 95% disagree,  we are talking controversial where it’s a 50/50 split.   When you nave near equal love vs hate of your position on a topic,  you will see many on your side link to you,  while you will see many others on the other side link to you as well with ‘look at those idiots’.

 The point being that controversial topics are generally more popular.

Some examples:

Republicans vs Democrats (always a hot topic every 4 years)
Iraq War (Very hot topic)
Potential war with Iran (Hot Topic)
Gas Prices (Hot Topic)
Abortion (Hot since the 1970’s)
Diebold Voting Machines (will be hot and even more hot every 4 years)
Click Fraud (Hot and growing)

You get the hint,  topics such as these tend to get linked to more and more and taking a position on one side or another always tends to get more and more attention.

 The point that we are trying to make is that your content needs to be somewhat controversial in nature.

 Now of course there are sites where controversial is not really needed,  let’s say you write out a white page on how to use php/mysql.  That will come up for related searches and bingo you get traffic if done right.  But sites such as those tend to be informative, but generally don’t succeed to the point where you could call it a total success.

 Another site that would be controversial would be Aaron Walls’ Threadwatch we are a big fan of threadwatch because of the types of breaking news that are posted.   Generally search engine related but nearly always controversial in nature.  Great site for breaking news regarding the search engines.

Content is great, Controversial Content is better.