No Shortcuts for Unique Content

The short answer is "no." SEO can’t produce gold from straw. SEO performance is based on valuable content that attracts valuable links. Copying and pasting another site’s quality content into a new template with no additional unique commentary or content will not achieve lasting results. Neither will mashing the quality content from several sources into a template with no additional unique commentary or content. If an ecommerce site (or any site) aspires to lasting SEO performance, it has to give value to get value.

If the audience doesn’t get value from the content, they will not feel compelled to give value to the site in the form of links, comments, reviews, “Likes” and other forms of participation that add uniqueness or popularity to a site.

Let’s start with a definition of “content.” It's more than long, gray fields of text. Yes, textual content it critical to setting a keyword theme to anchor rankings for the long term. But to be valuable, content also needs to be appealing to the site’s human audience.