Cobranded Content
Boon Or Doom?

As Webmaster, you can enhance your visitors' experience by offering cobranded content on your site. In some cases, it can be a valuable addition to your Web site's already focused content. Do I need to stress the fact that you can never have enough of the latter?

In its basic form, cobranded content is provided by an external source, dynamically, by mutual agreement, and automatically posted - more or less seamlessly imbedded - where you choose, on your site.

You remain responsible for ensuring that your source is reliable and reputable. You will always have to remain alert, to prevent questionable content from slipping in, intentionally, or not.

The Opportunities

Some of it can be free web site content. In that case, it is usually public data that one can find relatively easily on the Web, or offline. But, you can post a suitable selection on your Web site, to make life easier for your visitor.

You should write the bulk of your Web site's content, yourself. Only post external data that will complement it.

You will want to select, and post, the cobranded data that will most likely help your visitor come to an informed decision more easily. This will enhance your credibility as a reliable source of information.

Most often, if your site's revenue can support it, you will want to go for customized content. For a price, it is possible for you to have the content,

• Dynamically selected, or even generated, for you, according to your criteria,
• posted on your site according to a predetermined schedule,
• with your site's look and feel, in a seamless fashion.

In fact, the more Webmasters are beginning to see the advantages of cobranded content, the more flexible the offerings are getting.

This type of content first began to appear on financial related sites and news sites, some years ago. It is now beginning to spread to other domains, such as health care related sites.

I Recommend Caution

A word of caution is in order. The data is foreign. You have not personally screened it before it is posted on your Web site pages. This is especially critical, if the data is generated, such as statistics! Granted, the data should be provided to you according to the agreement you have signed with the content supplier, but . . .

Therefore, I recommend that you take extreme care, and go through a thorough due diligence process, before you enter a legal agreement with the firm that will supply you with cobranded content, to post on your business Web site.

Your reputation, your image, and your livelihood
may depend on your diligence.

In any case, you should not even consider posting content from an external source until you have built your own critical mass of useful, reliable content, by yourself, for your Web site's target clientele.

Your own "presence" should far outweigh the externally generated content, on your business Web site. Then, carefully selected cobranded content can become a boon. If not, you are risking doom for your Web business!

Think about this carefully.

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