To create or to curate? That is the question!

By Amy @BubbleJobs

When it comes to content there’s no doubting that it’s all about the two ‘C’s; creation and curation. While content creation isn’t really a new phenomenon (if you could ever call it that!), content curation is.

The idea of curating content from other sites might go against anything you’ve ever been taught when it comes to SEO (it’s all about unique content remember?) but if you think about it, it’s actually already an existing part of our lives. From recommending that new Chinese in town to your friend to tweeting that funny article you’ve just found on the Daily Mail, content curation is an integral part of our ‘offline’ lives so why should it be any different online?

OK, so if content creation’s been going on offline for ages why is it only becoming prominent online now? The answer? Because online content creation has never been easier! From personal blogs to international news sites and video sharing sites, anyone can create and publish content online these days – all it takes is a bit of time, imagination and know-how.

If you think about it, there’s now more content online than ever before and thanks to free online platforms like Facebook, YouTube and WordPress there’s still a lot more to come. So if there’s tonnes of content online, does it not make sense that some sites should crop up that try to sort through it all and group like-minded content together? From sites like comparethemarket.com to trivago.com, there are already shed-loads of sites that only function because they (in effect) gather content from other sites and sources to create their pages.

The important thing to remember about content curation is it can’t happen without content creation – you can’t find and group content together if it hasn’t been created! To this effect, although content curation is fairly big at the moment, it’s not going to be able to grow unless content continues to be created on a mass scale.

When it comes to the question of creation or curation; it’s really not an either/or situation. You don’t need to choose between creating or curating content – you can do both… but you don’t have to! The beauty of online content is you don’t have to choose between being a content creator and a content curator – it’s really up to you!

And what if someone curates your content? Take it as a compliment! The role of a content curator is to find and track down the best bits of content on the web so if they’ve chosen to include your content on their site, how can it be a bad thing? In addition to helping you get more exposure and a potential new traffic revenue, being featured on a curation site could help you to gain a valuable inbound link and remember, in these post-Penguin days, every valuable link counts!

Tags: content creation Vs content curation, content curation, online content curation, online content strategy

About the Author

Amy Edwards Amy Edwards is the SEO Manager for Bubble Jobs. With a strong background in online content and copywriting, Amy is responsible all the on-site and off-site SEO of Bubble Jobs and the Bubble Jobs blog. You can follow her on Twitter here or add her to your circles on Google+ here.