Does Your Content Really Need To Be Unique?
I wonder sometimes if readers really understand the concept of unique content. The question in the title is interesting in that the answer really does depend on how you view the word ‘unique’. In its strictest sense, unique means one of a kind. But how does that relate to content?
There are two ways to look at unique content. It can be unique in that, word for word, there is no other content like it on the web. The second way to look at unique is to say that no one has written about that topic before. Given the millions of pages on the web, the latter is the most unlikely definition of unique. Yet to many people, that is exactly what they refer to when speaking of unique content.
Even if you were the first to write on a particular topic, it wouldn’t take long for others to write about it as well. That leaves us with the first definition of unique – your content is, word for word, unique on the web.
This now opens up every single topic you can think of. So long as you are writing your content yourself and not copying chunks of it from elsewhere, then it is unique. I will go one step further and acknowledge that simply rewriting someone else’s copy is not unique either since you are simply rehashing someone else’s thoughts.
Unique content is just that – your own thoughts. Someone else’s content may well trigger a line of thought, but it is from your perspective entirely. Fresh and unique content therefore doesn’t always have to be ‘unique’ in terms of topic. It does need to be unique in terms of the thoughts and views expressed.
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