Wikipedia is often used as a source for content marketing for companies across many industries. This is because Wikipedia is one of the largest free sources of information for an extremely wide audience across the web. Search engines trust Wikipedia content, thus using Wikipedia as a marketing tool is a great idea.

There are a variety of marketing strategies companies can use when it comes to utilizing Wikipedia. Keep reading to find out how your business could benefit from using this popular reference library in your marketing efforts.

How are companies using Wikipedia for marketing?

Companies are turning to Wikipedia as one of the most efficient ways to quickly earn visibility to their websites. With the amount of visibility that Wikipedia pages get on a daily basis, it makes sense why businesses want to capitalize on these searchers.

Other companies utilize the platform to provide more information to support Google’s knowledge graph, an API produced in 2012 that has accumulated over 500 billion facts of over 5 million entities across the web. The knowledge graph powers Google’s knowledge panel that is often seen on the right side of search results.

Having more publicly available information about your client, business, and other projects online helps Google and other search engines find this information, organize it, and share it with others when searching for related topics. Keep reading if you’re interested in finding out how you can leverage Wikipedia articles as a way of supplementing your marketing efforts.

Using Wikipedia for Marketing: 3 Strategies

There are three main marketing strategies companies use on Wikipedia. Link building, content marketing, and reputation management are the three main ways Wikipedia can help your client or business. While these strategies are indeed helpful, they should always be used in conjunction with traditional marketing strategies for ultimate success.

Be sure to review Wikipedia’s guidelines before creating articles or editing Wikipedia entries. One of the easiest ways to stifle any marketing opportunities on Wikipedia is by submitting too many edits that involve your client or business on too many articles at a time. This creates a rather large conflict of interest, especially if too many articles link back to the same page of your website. Wikipedia reserves the right to speedy deletion and take downs of any content that violates their stringent rules.

The following strategies work well in lieu and in tandem with having your own Wikipedia page, so be sure to check out our article on that if you’re not sure where to begin.

Types of Wikipedia Marketing Strategies:

• Link Building
• Content Marketing
• Reputation Management

These three strategies are a good idea for increasing your Page Rank in Google search. Always be mindful of how you can incorporate different elements within each strategy to your own marketing mix.

Strategy #1: Link Building

While external links are generally nofollow links on Wikipedia, earning any links from this domain are always a great way to bolster your backlink profile. Gaining a link from Wikipedia tells website crawlers that your website has a substantial amount of credibility and authority on the topic at hand.

Wikipedia monitors links regularly, so be on the lookout for any dead link opportunities for your business. If you come across a “dead link” AKA a link that is broken, results in a 404 error, etc., this is the perfect opportunity to submit an edit with your business’s link via the “Talk” tab of the page. Make sure that the page you’re suggesting is relevant to the topic discussed on Wikipedia.

Strategy #2: Content Marketing

Wikipedia is one of the best sources of gaining background information on a wide variety of topics. Therefore, if you’re able to create a Wikipedia page specifically for your client or business, your online visibility will skyrocket. Plus, if you’re able to add some related information about your business or brand on a few other Wikipedia articles, you’ll have a nice network of search traffic pointing to your site.

Plus, you can use Wikipedia articles to find out what questions or related topics searchers are curious about, and you can leverage this in new content ideas. Answer their questions and create engaging copy to bolster your content marketing.

Strategy #3: Reputation Management

Wikipedia is the ultimate tool for reputation management. Social media platforms and other online publications can voice their opinions on certain brands, but on Wikipedia, the tone and point of view must stay neutral. This is a jackpot for brands in need of some crisis PR.

If you have negative news mentions or an unfavorable reputation online, you can suggest edits to your Wikipedia page and mentions that ensure any scandal or situation is addressed with neutrality in mind.

Closing

If you’re interested in using Wikipedia as an additional marketing strategy, talk to us at WikiCreators.com. We’ll discuss  the best way to help you reach your goals. We’re U.S.-based Wikipedia experts and we’re here to make your Wikipedia project a reality.