User-generated content (UGC) has been around on the internet for a long time.
User-generated content is one of the reasons people love and also hate the internet. Whether you’re sharing a funny meme, reviewing a comment, watching an unboxing of a new product – all of this is considered user generated content. There’s also the fear of trolling or you have to worry about it but you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Recently, user-generated content has been extremely popular and visible on Google and other search engines. This article will review not only what user-generated content is but also how it’s become a critical part of the digital landscape and why it’s important for brands to leverage this for their own success in content marketing.
What is User-Generated Content?
User-generated content is any content that is created by fans/contributors vs. professional journalists or publishers.
UGC is when regular people are giving their own perspective around something. People are contributing content because they love something about your brand, product, services – they’re taking time out of their day to review or discuss it. They might also dislike something about your brand or service but the goal is to listen to what users have to say about us as they are offering their authentic perspective for a reason.
There’s also countless ways that UGC can be delivered and consumed. UGC can be in many different formats and mediums: written, visual, or audio, and can include messages, reviews, comments, images, videos, artwork, and audio files.
The plethora of ways that UGC has risen in the last few years shows that people are willing to contribute content in a variety of ways for different audiences but the goal is still the same – they have something to say and want to be heard.
There’s also a ton of benefits around UGC. The benefits of UGC is that users are offering a real and authentic perspective around a topic or brand. It’s hard to elicit a natural response from a user so we need to make sure that when someone does offer their real personal experience around our brand or around a topic we care about – that we pay attention to it.
UGC also creates a psychological response called social proof, which makes people assume that others’ actions reflect correct behavior for a situation.
Think about this from your own personal experience – if someone you know like a family member, friend, or significant other purchases a product or service, you’re more likely to review this product or purchase it yourself because someone else has done it and discussed with you how they like it.
There’s also tangible benefits to user-generated content as sites with UGC have helped increase conversion rates compared to sites that do not have UGC. In a study done by Yotpo, they found that “across all industries, people who look at UGC are converting 161 percent more than people who are not looking at UGC”.
UGC isn’t just nice to have but it’s actually a great way to convert users. We want users to sell our products and services for us vs. us having to convince people ourselves. People are more willing to listen to online reviews and ratings than the brand itself because they know that these people are willing to put their money where their mouth is.
The Rise of User-Generated Content on Google
Over the last few years, a lot has happened on Google to influence the rise of UGC directly on the search engine result pages.
While UGC was also accessible via Google and other search engines and did sometimes appear directly on the SERPs, back in September 2022 this became more prominent. Google released the Discussions & Forums search result.
This search result was aimed to help users better understand what people are saying online through different forums. Forums have always been a great place for useful and first hand advice or perspectives. This is because people who are contributing to these forums usually have experience in what you are searching around or might be interested in a similar topic as you.
In the last year, forums have exploded in organic visibility. Reddit, Quora, TikTok, and countless other forums have increased significantly in organic traffic. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve likely seen these results first hand.
To put some numbers behind this growth for different forums and user-generated content platforms:
Reddit has seen a 282% increase in Page 1 keywords YOY and now ranks for over 50 million keywords on Page 1
Quora has seen a 200% increase in Page 1 keywords YOY and ranks for over 15 million keywords on Page 1
TikTok has seen a 75% increase in Page 1 keywords YOY and ranks for close to 12 million keywords on Page 1
These different sites are appearing so much now because they have a ton of content on there from users. Users contribute content in countless ways here and are continuing to do so around any topic you can think of.
To make matters more interesting, these forums are also appearing in AI Overviews with Reddit appearing around 65,000 times, Quora appearing 47,000 times and TikTok appearing around 26,500 times. One of the reasons is that this UGC has a lot of first hand perspectives and is optimized for AI Overviews and created in a way that LLMs appreciate using logical structuring and fragmentation.
Forums are answering people’s questions for a variety of topics. If you search “chinese food near me” or “ how to plan a trip” or even “best life insurance” you’re going to see Reddit, Quora, and other niche forums directly on Page 1 answering these questions. Sometimes they appear as blue links, sometimes they appear nested in the Discussions & Forums section.
Reddit & Google’s Partnership
In 2024, a few things happened that made some people put in their tinfoil hats around Reddit’s meteoric rise in organic search.
Google and Reddit signed an AI content licensing deal where Google will pay Reddit $60 million dollars a year to train Google’s LLMs with Reddit content.
Next, Reddit is then dedicated to block all other major search engines from crawling their content. This represents a big change as now Google is the only search engine that benefits from Reddit’s user-generated content. Older content will still appear and of course you can access it directly through the site but no new content can be crawled from the other search engines.
Microsoft called this a paid to play model but until other search engines pay up – this is the way it’s going to remain.
How Can We Leverage Users Insights for Keyword Research & Content Gaps
One of the best ways we can leverage these forums is to do keyword research to identify the customer’s voice.
Let’s explore how to do this using a subreddit.
What is a subreddit?
A subreddit is a specific online community or forum on Reddit dedicated to a particular topic where all the posts are associated to that topic (example: /r/gaming or /r/travel)
For any specific topic you can think of there is a subreddit for it which is one of the best places to go to better understand what people are talking about around this topic.
How To Use Subreddits For Keyword Research
We can use subreddits and individual posts within each subreddit to identify relevant keywords.
For example, if you’re thinking about creating content around Travel Tips:
- Go to /r/travel and start searching for content around the topic you want to create
- Then take the URL of the subreddit or the individual post and identify relevant keywords to target
The best part is that every subreddit and every individual post within that subreddit has a unique URL that we can use for keyword research.
Using these individual URLs, we can then identify if the post ranks for relevant keywords that we might want to use within our own content.
Take the example above, this post ranks for 20+ keywords on Page 1 and a lot of “How to” & “Preparation” Travel keywords in the Top 3
Using these individual posts, we can also go to Quora or other forums where the URLs are unique as they will likely also rank for relevant keywords.
We can see in the example below, this post is over 4 years old but still ranks for a lot of good keywords that we might want to use within our content as users clearly are searching for these things.
Overall, Reddit, Quora, & other forums are ranking for very specific keywords that are extremely long tail. This allows us as content marketers to identify keywords to target in the content we write.
Before writing any piece of content, we should be doing keyword research.
This allows us to understand the customer’s voice and what users are searching for.
Since we cannot create demand, we need to match the content we want to write with how users are searching.
Identifying Content Gaps Using Forums
There could be many instances where we aren’t sure what to create content around and that’s where we can use forums to find new topics to create content.
One of the biggest changes to search is that people are no longer referring to Google as a verb.
If you didn’t know something, people would tell you to Google it. That’s not the case anymore. People are going to Reddit, Instagram, TikTok, and even AI search engines to get information and learn about a topic.
Especially members of Generation Z, they don’t necessarily always go to Google to start the beigninig of their search journey. That’s why it’s important that we are not only present on these other mediums but we are also looking at them to understand what consumers want.
This doesn’t mean that Google is losing their search monopoly, this is likely additive to the search journey.
For example, a lot of times when I am trying to find a restaurant to go to with my wife, look for a new recipe, or find travel tips I might go to TikTok, Instagram, or Reddit first but then I will end my journey on Google.
This is why we can start to use this user generated content for more content ideation.
How to Use Forums & Subreddits for Content Ideas
Similar to how all of these posts have unique URLs, so do the subreddits.
- Go to a subreddit that is relevant to your industry or the topic you want to create content around
- Sort by Top content in different time ranges and start browsing to see what people are talking about
This way you can understand what consumers are looking for and what content is popular.
By reading through the posts/comments we can start to analyze what people are looking for or asking questions around.
Additionally, we can also analyze the top ranking content on a forum for new content creation ideas.
For example, these subreddits are basically subfolders so we can see which posts are ranking for the most keywords and then dive deeper into those posts and see what they rank for.
It’s also important to start scouring the web for niche forums related to the topics we are writing about and we care about. There are thousands of forums out there and definitely one related to your industry that you might have never heard of before but that are starting to appear organically for the keywords you care about.
Many Trends Start on Tiktok & Instagram
It’s also interesting to start and see which trends are becoming more popular with user-generated content. There are many trends that actually begin on TikTok and Instagram that people have not written organic content around just yet.
We can use these forums to create content before others do.
There are many content ideas that we can explore from using TikTok or Instagram hashtags. Start going to these platforms and searching for things related to your company or industry and see what people are talking about.
Gen Z & Millennials typically start their searching journey on social media and spend more time on these mediums than anywhere else.
One big trend that started this year on TikTok was users posting about the outfits they would be wearing to the Taylor Swift Eras tour.
Blushful Belle took advantage of a gap in the organic market here and created content around “Taylor Swift Outfits” and now ranks on Page 1 for many high volume and relevant keywords all related to this topic.
The point here is that we can look at UGC and start to create content around these topics and trends because many users might not only be looking for this information on TikTok and Instagram. They also might start their journey on one platform and then go to another to do more research.
There are so many different ways to search now, staying relevant and on top of trends has never been more important.
Staying Relevant on Google: How Can We Still Show Up
With everything changing and there more competition than ever before for user’s attention, how can we stay relevant and show up on Google?
The main takeaway from this article is that authentic human conversations are the ultimate commodity right now.
As digital marketers, prioritizing UGC strategy is more important than ever before. This can be running a forum, collecting feedback or reviews, getting customer testimonials, and collecting videos or pictures from your users.
Tory Gray, CEO of Gray Dot Company, wrote a great piece about how to implement a scalable strategy using UGC.
It’s important to identify what works best for you and test it out!
How can we integrate UGC into our strategy?
There’s many different ways we can incorporate UGC into our strategy and on our website.
Here are a few examples of successful ways I’ve seen clients implement this before:
- Engage with customers and encourage them to leave comments or share their experiences
- Use the UGC you receive as relevant feedback to make changes to your products
- Create email campaigns or paid advertising using real world examples and customer testimonials
- Find ways to add UGC to your website with reviews, galleries, or case studies
- Run contests/giveaways to help foster a community
- Work with influencers, partnerships, or brand ambassadors to build trust
It’s important as a company to find what works best for us and then start making the case to get this on our site.
How Can We Prioritize UGC on Our Website & Other Mediums
Showcasing UGC on your own website can also improve the trust your community has in the products we sell or within our business.
I’ve worked with e-commerce companies who have started to ask users to submit real life before and after photos of customers using their products to show how they are benefiting from it. This is especially helpful if you are in the skincare industry so users can see the impacts before they purchase the products.
Additionally, I’ve had clients take the route of social media by creating TikTok contests and allowing people to submit their own videos to be featured on the channel.
A lot of my customers are starting off small by letting users submit reviews around their product and then within these reviews, the users can add pictures of the products in real life so people have a better understanding of what this looks like.
All of these are great examples of UGC and how social proof can help increase conversions for your website.
There are also companies that are creating their own online communities. Sephora and Zapier are two great examples of this. While they are very different in terms of what they offer, they’ve created online communities for their users to submit questions or post helpful information around the services and products.
While managing a community is a full time job, it is a great way to grow organic visibility and have users build up our brands and create content for us.
In Conclusion
The reason there is such a big rise in user generated content on Google is because for the most part, it’s great content.
At its very core, great content is helpful, reliable and people-first.
User-generated content at its core is helpful and people-first since it’s created by people. We do need to take everything we read online with a grain of salt and of course there could be bad actors that are not providing reliable information.
When we create content on our site, we need to make sure we are adding first hand experiences or data that is relevant. Let’s make sure our content is relevant, useful, helpful, and high quality.
At the end of the day, we shouldn’t be creating content for Google, for Reddit, for TikTok, or for these AI engines – we should be creating content that matches the heart and the soul of the user.
Zack Kadish is an to Sr. SEO Strategy Director at Conductor and is passionate about all things SEO from content to technical. Zack has been in the SEO space for the last 8 years and works directly with both enterprises and small/medium enterprises. His writing has been published in various industry-leading publications.