Why You Need a Wikipedia Page

Does your business have a Wikipedia page? If your answer is “I don’t know,” then you should check into that ASAP. You may be surprised at the results you find — many businesses, organizations, local establishments, etc. that have been around for any length of time already have a Wikipedia page. As a quick aside, Wikipedia is a free, online Encyclopedia containing over 3.8 million articles in English that anyone can edit. It is one of the most popular sites by traffic rates worldwide, consistently in the top 10 (usually number 5), just behind Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Yahoo.

If your business does not have an article on Wikipedia, you can create and edit one. Complete a careful search, though, before creating a new page on Wikipedia. Your article should be well-written, contain helpful, non-personal content, and be free from any and all copyright violations. Wikipedia has some helpful suggestions for creating a page here. Here are some reasons why I always encourage businesses to create and edit their Wikipedia page:

• It increases your search results on Google. Have quality information about your business on a site like Wikipedia makes Google stand up and take notice. Additionally, your business’ page may pop up on a Google search for your business, provided you include relevant search term information within your article — and depending upon the search terms used.
• Offsite content containing links back to your site is always a good idea, particularly on a site with as much traffic as Wikipedia. Backlinks drive traffic to your site — which is the ultimate goal.
• Google Maps contains a Wikipedia layer. When you look through Google Maps, you can click on “Wikipedia” while on a map to see which places contain Wikipedia articles in that area. This equates to increased exposure for your business.
• You can track your article’s statistics and see how visitors found your page, in much the same way as Google Analytics, making it quite simple to figure out if your page is effective.

We highly recommend having a Wikipedia article and checking it often. Remember — anyone can edit pages on Wikipedia. For help writing and creating it, give us a call. We’d love to help!