As you may know by now, content can be very stressful: it needs to be well thought out, well written and compelling enough. Some may even deem it too hard and will, more than likely, resort to content duplication across their franchisee sites. But, as you may also be aware of, content duplication can be damaging to your franchisee sites.
Duplicate content, as the phrase entails, means copying and pasting chunks of texts in various sites, without adding any real value to it. The problem is that it can seriously detriment your SEO strategy and bring you down in the rankings (which equals less visibility, less traffic and less possibility of conversions).
Of course, duplicate content’s needed to some extent: you still are part of a same company and the messaging across franchisee sites, should be somewhat similar. There’s even an unwritten rule that states that as long around 65% of a page’s content is original, you should have no problem.
Still, it’s very important that content duplication doesn’t come creeping out in your franchisee sites. But how to make sure it’s not? Here are some tools that will help stay on the right track:
The Tools to Fight Content Duplication
In addition to the tips I shared with you about duplicate content, you can do small things with which you can be certain that content duplication is not how you roll. If you own a lot of franchisee sites, it can be difficult to try and manage content duplication across all sites. Hopefully, these tools will help you keep your content strategy on the right track.
Dupli Checker
Dupli Checker, or some of the other options to check for duplicate content online, is great to make sure you’re on the right track with content. It’s a free alternative that works on detecting plagiarism.
You just need to copy and paste a chunk of text (of about 1500 words) and click on the green “Search” button. Just like that, you’ll be given a list of where else, in the whole wide web, that extract of content can be found.
Webmaster Tools
This is a service offered by Google that helps out the “Webmaster” of a site with statistics and information about the sites usability and optimization. The way it can help you with content duplication is that, they automatically send you a warning when it realizes that some of the content in your site is prone to be penalized.
So, this one pretty much works on its own and you won’t have to do much, just check if they are any warnings. Still, this is a tool that you should when you’re managing sites, regardless of content duplication.
The “Google” Search
This is a simple one that can be used to optimize titles and making them as localized as possible. The “…” search will only require you to put the text you’re looking for in quotation marks when searching for it in Google.
For example, if you’d like to search the title The Best Window Cleaners in the New York City Area in Google, you’d just have to put it between quotations. The result would be something like this “The Best Window Cleaners in the New York City Area”.
By adding these marks, you’re basically telling Google that you’d like to search that phrase EXACTLY as you write it: in the same order, with the same spelling, etc. This can be a great tool so truly put an effort in making your content as local as possible!
Empowerkit
Empowerkit gives you control over content and design in franchisee sites. This way, you’ll be able to lock certain content or apps so they’re filled out with the proper information. Plus, you have the power to authorize a site until it’s exactly the way it should be.
When to Use These Content Duplication Tools
Now that you have the tools, it’s important to know when’s the appropriate time to utilize them. Here are some suggestions that will, hopefully, give you an idea of how to use them wisely!
Before Publishing a New Site
By checking for duplicate content right from the start, you make sure you know that the basics in the site aren’t considered duplicate content. Furthermore, this strategy gives you the chance to thoroughly go through each section in a site to ensure that it’s perfect before going live.
This gives you the control to authorize the content AND design so it’s ready for the world to see it!
Before Publishing a New Post
If you have an inbound marketing strategy, you know that you should be blogging regularly. So, by checking for content duplication before a new blog post is published, you’ll know that your franchisees didn’t plagiarized it from another site.
It’s also a good way to verify that the posts are localized enough. Plus, it gives you, or someone at corporate, the chance to go over brand compliance before this new content is out in the open.
When Optimizing Content
SEO is a moving target which requires your strategy to be constantly updated. So, when looking to optimize titles, content, or updating information, it’s a good time to use the “Google” search, for example. Duplicate content is a good excuse to try to make your texts as local as possible while maintaining brand compliance!
Conclusion
Regardless of the tools you choose to use, remember that you need to be on top of your content strategy so it’s not tainted with a duplicate content penalization. Of course, you should let your franchisees be in the know and warn them of the problems of just copying and pasting content (in case you’d like them to write for their site).
Remember that, in the end, a site is meant to be seen and to be compelling enough for visitors to convert, so don’t damage your goals with duplicate content!
If you have any questions, feel free to ask!
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