Why a Wikipedia Page Is Highly Coveted
One of the main goals of content marketing is to create awareness about a company or brand, and promote it as an important player in its specific field. Of course, creating valuable content is one way to capture audience interest and create brand equity. However, for an enterprise to make a breakthrough in the public domain, and establish itself as newsworthy, one of the prerequisites is to feature on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is the 7th most viewed website in the world. When you type any information about a person, an idea, an event, or organization on Google, you will see Wikipedia invariably appearing in the top 5 searches. From an SEO point of view, Wikipedia is highly beneficial to any organization and can lead to more visibility, credibility and traffic on the company website.
Considering that Wikipedia covers everything under the sun on its website, and relies on the efforts of volunteer editors and writers, it can be easy to presume that getting your company featured on Wikipedia is a simple task. The truth is that Wikipedia is not a platform for companies to promote themselves. The website - even if it uses secondary sources – is a serious online encyclopedia. Wikipedia’s objective is to provide unbiased, verifiable information about searchable topics.
5 Key Steps to Getting Content Approved by Wikipedia
To qualify for a separate, stand-alone Wikipedia page, a topic has to meet certain set criteria. Wikipedia receives hundreds of articles every day, but only a handful of them are accepted; the rest are rejected because they do not meet the website’s terms and conditions. Here’s what you and your team of SEO copywriters need to know while drafting content for Wikipedia:
- The Notability Factor: Whatever topic you choose to submit, it must be “worthy of notice.” This means that the subject should have already received significant coverage from reliable and independent sources such as magazines, newspapers, and so on. Wikipedia is not interested in promoting your company and is instead looking to present facts in an unbiased, objective manner. If you are submitting an article to Wikipedia about your company, make sure it does not read like a sponsored article. Make it sound as fact-based as possible. In fact, you must be willing to reveal certain unflattering incidents or aspects about your company, if they are an undeniable part of your company’s history.
- List of Sources: A trivial mention of your company, even if it is by a leading newspaper, does not make the cut where Wikipedia is concerned. Not only should you have received a significant amount of press, but the sources you cite should be credible and well-known too. Wikipedia expects verifiable evidence through citations. Go through all the sources that have quoted your company and evaluate how strong your case is. If you find that your sources are not too impressive, do not send your article to the website. Instead, work with your copywriting agency to find ways to get credible coverage so as to strengthen your company’s public profile.
- Following Wikipedia’s Manual of Style: To keep up editorial standards and achieve consistency across all its pages, Wikipedia insists that all content writers and editors follow the website’s detailed guidelines on aspects related to formatting, language, and layout. Before you draft your article, make sure to go through Wikipedia’s style manual in detail, and apply its rules as far as possible. Even if your company is noteworthy and you have respectable sources to cite, if your writing does not adhere to Wikipedia’s set criteria, your content submission may not be accepted.
- Creating an Account: Create your user account and give it a handle. This is an important step where you will be communicating with Wikipedia editors. Make sure to reveal if you have a conflict of interest – your exact connection with the subject of the article. Having a connection is not grounds for disqualifications, but not coming clean on it can become an issue.
- Submitting Your Content: Once you submit your piece, it could take a few weeks before a Wikipedia editor gets back to you proposing any revisions or inclusions. Do your best to incorporate any changes they desire and do not get upset if their feedback is not what you expected. Adhering to Wikipedia’s requirements minimizes any possibility of your content not finding approval for publishing.
Getting featured in Wikipedia can provide a huge boost to your content marketing efforts. If you are looking for a leading copywriting agency with expertise and experience in SEO copywriting, call 1-888-6468-003 today or email us to learn about our range of content writing services in Canada, USA, Europe and the Middle East.