User Generated content

User generated content is allowing visitors to add information to your website, for example their thoughts on an article, or images they have taken. Another example of user generated content is a forum, where visitors can post questions and others can answer them.

User generated content expands the size of your website without you having to produce content, the disadvantage is somebody has to moderate it, as it is open to abuse, for example offensive language or spammers put links to their website’s to increase their search engine ranking. Learn more about search engine rankings.

Adding user generated content to your website

The easiest and simplest way to add user generated content to your website is by asking people to send it to you, like their views or pictures, and supply an email address, (How to add an email link), for them to send it to. When you receive content add it manually, if you start getting enough responses you can look at other ways of automating this. However there is no point in spending hours adding complex code to your site that may never get used. First find out if people will send you content, and then take it from there.