How to Use Wikipedia to Boost Your Business’ Exposure

Comments Off on How to Use Wikipedia to Boost Your Business’ Exposure, 21/09/2013, by , in Marketing

WikipuzzleAny business that wants to augment its presence in the digital world has an arsenal of tools at its disposal. While true saturation and immersion within a particular audience will take a lot of time and effort, the key is to approach this from multiple avenues in order to build a strong ground game for your search engine optimization presence and customer clout. One way that many businesses have helped leverage their rankings in search results is through the use of Wikipedia, which can be a valuable asset for establishing brand recognition and factual documentation of your endeavours. If you already have an established web presence and wish to further solidify this situation, then continue reading to find out more on how Wikipedia can assist.

The Nature of the Wiki

Wikipedia is an open-source community that allows virtually anyone to make edits to an existing page or create a new page from scratch. As the community has grown, however, more measures have been taken to reduce the instances of vandalism and inaccurate information from being propagated. As a result, all edits are subject to approval and any newly-created pages undergo the same process. When you are pinging sites to search engines at a rate like Wikipedia does, it is vital that these measures exist. Wikipedia attempts to keep its content as informative and unbiased as possible, so you should be aware of this concept before you begin any project with it.

Ground Rules for Content

When you first create a Wikipedia page, it is important to understand the ground rules in order to ensure speedy publication of your business’ page. Wikipedia will not tolerate content that is not neutral. This means that any opinions about how great your company is will need to be left out, with only neutral content covered. There are many ways in which you can accentuate your business’ strengths through neutral information, such as the amount of revenue that was obtained in a given period or the number of customers served. All information must also be verifiable – this means that the information included on Wikipedia be outlined on another website or news source (preferably not your business’ website).

Other Considerations

If you create a Wikipedia account with your business’ name as the username, then be sure to interact with other aspects of Wikipedia in order to increase your business’ reputation and profile on the site. This can mean making edits to other pages that have errors or engaging in group discussions about particular topics. There is also a step-by-step how-to provided by Wikipedia to all new users that will help get you started. It is also vital that you utilize the references section of Wikipedia for your business’ page – readers will want to see references in order to ensure that the information being provided is accurate, unbiased and documented elsewhere.

Conclusion

When boosting your business via Wikipedia, remember that you need to be unbiased and document the facts laid out to the public. Personal opinion is not necessary nor permitted, and the community at-large will heavily edit your page if this becomes an issue. As you grow your business, your Wikipedia page will help to boost your exposure and can be a valuable way to start pinging sites and pages about your business to search engines.