MerchantCircle is now building a network of local writers in a bid to boost its content and retain its place in search results among other objectives. It has previously used Q&A to generate unique local content. It also not long ago announced a deal with content farm Demand Media.
I didn’t get a chance to speak to MerchantCircle about this new effort but my guess is that Demand hasn’t really delivered. I could be wrong on that. If I am please correct me.
According to the press release:
The new program, known as ‘Local Content Studio,’ was designed to reward MerchantCircle members and other users for creating highly relevant local content — all of which will enhance the local search experience for the tens of millions of local consumers that leverage MerchantCircle every month for services in their communities.
Soft-launched in late May, Local Content Studio (LCS) will bring short-format information and expert articles onto MerchantCircle that capture the “local tail” of consumer interest. For example, rather than writing a general-interest piece on fresh-water fishing, a MerchantCircle Local Content Studio submission might focus on the best fishing tips for Five Lake, in Talkeetna, Alaska, written by a local bait shop owner. Such hyper-local content, covering tens of thousands of local topics, is of great interest to local consumers.
MerchantCircle’s Local Content Studio was developed and is being run by OurStory creator Andy Halliday, which actually gives it a great deal more credibility, in my mind, than a generic “content farm.” MerchantCircle also said that it has seen high demand and activity from early contributors:
In just the first eight weeks, contributors have produced over 28,000 city descriptions and nearly 12,000 accompanying local photosets. Information on major businesses, history, places to visit and people of note were published on the local city pages. In one recent week, there were over 150 contributors with eleven writers earning over $300 each, real compensation for quality contribution, with the top two earning $642 and $798.
The earnings references are in there “prophylactically” I suspect because of sensitivity to the notion that freelancers are being exploited by content farms such as Demand and Associated Content.
MerchantCircle lays out its objectives for the new effort:
- Create more local, commercially valuable content to deepen relationships between local customers and our merchants.
- Offer articles that merchants can engage with to bring their unique expertise to MerchantCircle pages.
- Reward local content experts monetarily for quality submissions
- Build a vast library of proprietary local content that is unique to MerchantCircle’s network and can be leveraged through the MerchantCircle API feed.
The company, which gets a substantial amount of traffic from SEO, may now feel the need to “step up its game” given that Patch, Associated Content, Demand and others are out there generating local content and articles of various sorts — all seeking local SEO supremacy.
August 26th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
Greg, thanks for the nod
,
I am excited about the early results from LCS’s content publishing on the MC site, and we have a number of places on our own pages to leverage the new publishing asset this represents. Our relationship with Demand Studios is great and getting better. As a complement to the content we import from DS we built a very specific short-form application of the content studio model that works with both freelancers and our merchant community. In addition to our current use of DS content from Pluck and working with the eNom division, we are always looking for future opportunities to include DS content to improve the local search experience for consumers.
Andy
August 26th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Andy,
Can you comment on if you were able to get many of your SMB’s engaged in doing much writing on your initial push (vs freelance) – getting SMB to write anything is tough.
Mike
August 26th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
Mike, our first push was to put out basic information about cities and towns, and we didn’t invite merchants to contribute to that, but nonetheless, over 500 of the editable city descriptions now have a merchant as the most recent editor…and some of them (see http://www.merchantcircle.com/directory/MO-Saint-Louis) are fine examples of the quality you get when a local merchant adds their knowledge to the piece.
August 26th, 2010 at 11:40 pm
That’s pretty smart to seed the information then get the locals who live with it daily to tweak it – nice!