As a Business - Should You Wiki?
Wikipedia is one of the best known sites on the internet for research and finding high quality, verified links to source information. Administrated by a team of volunteer editors, and funded by donations, and whilst it isn’t perfect, it has a reputation for fairness and transparency and although in principle, anyone can edit pages there, changes are quickly reviewed by the editors and in some cases, pages locked for edits when this is abused.
Very often when someone performs a Google search, Wikipedia entries are among the first five results, but there are many search queries which do not have a corresponding Wikipedia page. This is because not everything qualifies for inclusion in a global encyclopaedia – content has to be notable and useable and meet stringent guidelines for acceptance to the public site. A Wikipedia entry on a search result page lends a lot of credibility to a business.
Getting your Wikipedia page accepted is hard work, so it is not worthwhile for every business to attempt this. The benefits are that a good entry about something notable will help drive traffic to your website, but the downside is that you may also need to supply links to your competitors, as proof of your particular product being superior or ground breaking. If your company is owned or affiliated with someone famous, this can be enough to get your entry accepted. Genuinely new and innovative technologies also tick the box, while companies with something unique, like the oldest date of establishment in a certain industry, can also have an page accepted on that basis.
To get started with Wikipedia, make an account and make some small edits to pages where you have knowledge or insight. This could be in the form of personal information about someone you know (please do check they are OK with you sharing that information first!), or finding the source material where you see [citation needed] in an entry. The more activity you have on your account, the more likely you are to be accepted as an “auto-confirmed user', a level which allows you to upload your own images and move draft pages into the public site.
When writing your article, follow the structure and style of other Wikipedia pages and avoid using marketing language, or including calls to action and other marketing copy tricks. Your Wikipedia page, while it will drive traffic, is not a marketing activity per se.It is more of a reputation building activity and a way of legitimising your position in your industry. You can include some keywords and key phrases if these do not stand out as being obvious SEO tactics.
Be prepared for edits and tweaks to be made by the editing and administration team once your article goes live, and be aware that you may not get your page accepted the first time round. Once you have a live page you will need to monitor and review it for edits made by anyone. You can set up email alerts for any edits allowing you to check and change them straight away if needed. A competitor might take offence to your inclusion and sabotage the article so you must be aware of this risk, small though it may be.
If your business meets the criteria for notability, and you have the time and experience (or can pay someone who does) to create the page and get it accepted then a Wikipedia page is worth having. If you're considering creating one, read this information on wikipedia notability first to determine if this is likely to be successful before getting stuck in.
