What do you really mean by saying "unique content"?

You're right, it's practically impossible to write something that no-one has written before. Even if you write content off-the-cuff you'll almost certainly have been influenced by what you've read and therefore will repeat phrases and so on.

However, when marketers talk about 'unique content' they normally mean content that isn't curated from somewhere else, even if it's spun.

For SEO you could broaden that further and say that anything that passes the Copyscape test is 'unique content' in that it isn't identifiable as a copy elsewhere on the 'net. But that is stretching the definition somewhat!

Neither.

I suspect you may be confusing "original" and "unique".

"Unique" means "not previously published" - that's all.

That doesn't have to matter. It's not about whether people can find information: it's about whether they do find information, and how it's presented to them.

By the way, the average person does fail miserably, in internet marketing - but that isn't the reason.

The answer is the second... an article in your own words.
Sometimes is not what you say so much in your article but how you say so it has an impact in your audience.

How many times you've read something about a particular subject that you did not "get it" or agree with and then you read the same information elsewhere but - this time - you actually "get it" and agree...?

The second time you read the info it made more sense for a variety of reasons (ie; you respect the author's opinion, you relate to the author, the subject is explained better than before, etc)

The truth is that there is no saturation... this is a big world!

The is a Latin saying: Nihil sub sole novum* [nothing new under the sun] and it was coined thousands of years ago... way before the "information age" and IM

Even the non-fiction stories of the whole "world literature" can be traced back to 7-8 archetypal plots featuring a few characters.

Which means you may be right about the impossibility of coming up with something absolutely new... but that doesn't stop thousands of writers, film makers and other creative individuals from attempting to give us newer and newer versions of the same old. And the best ones always succeed

Now, back to our incredibly small and narrow(minded) world of IM [misnomer because usually we think of MMO=making money online] - this world is full of urban legends, misconceptions and plain old BS.

If you think your average person's only chance to make money online is to write "unique content" - then I have to question your premise.

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*actually, it is a quote from Vulgata

Zourkas,

SEO and avoiding copyright issues are probably the main two reasons why most folks in the IM world continue to encourage "unique content."

Think about this -

How many of your prospects/customers know if a page of content, or an ad, or a blog post is unique? To them, the "test of uniqueness" is simply whether they have seen the content before.

Like "beauty" the label "unique" most likely is formulated in the eye of the beholder.

Hence, unique doesn't make one piece of content better or worse than another; it simply suggests that it is different from anything a reader has seen before.

With so many new folks coming online and joining the IM ranks, chances are pretty good that most content in this niche is new (and therefore unique) to those individuals and they will never know if, in fact, that content is actually unique or not.

I like to write my own content or credit (with permission) content that is authored elsewhere. But in all reality, very, very few people will ever know if your content is original, partially original, or wholly unoriginal, with this exception . . .

Your persona or "voice" implanted in your content is usually unique to you as an individual. Your subscribers and readers, the more they read your content, will begin to recognize your voice. Soon they will be able to tell if you authored content or not based upon the consistency that content piece has with what they expect from you.

Good luck to you,

Steve

Fiction novels can be unique (or rather original, like Alexa said), or a diary. Or local news. Things like that.
I think, when it comes to information, unless you come up with something new, nobody has ever thought of, you're quaranteed to find the very same information elsewhere (you've probably gathered your knowledge somewhere anyway). Internet is an Information Technology, and it's about spreading information, not inventing it.
And unique, as we see it, is just
unique phrasing
and /or unique mix of information
and /or unique personal point of viev on existing information.

Also, I don't think spun content is enough to be considered unique, even is search engines may see it that way.

Unique content is not only duplicate content, but it also the content that bring value and fresh ideas for the readers

Exactly. Your personal writing style is part of your overall brand. The information or facts might be the same but it is your unique viewpoint and presentation (different from opinion, mind you) that makes your content different. This is why I don't understand why many content providers insist on writing in a dull, flat, generic way.

Copyscape uniquness is just PART of what make content 'unique.' There's also a qualitative/experiential component. You know, the part that appeals to human readers.

Something that was not cut and paste from another web site. Like it can pass copy scape. Perhaps we need to define uniqueness. What we refer to it work that was done by you.

This is all you really needed to write

Probably the most used words in the content writing industry are "high quality" and "unique". The terms are thrown around so freely no one even knows what they mean anymore.

The general definition of "unique content" is just content that is not copied word for word from another source. But writing articles that are truly unique is a different story.

Like other members have mentioned, I think that content becomes truly unique when a writer does thorough research, formats all the information neatly, and writes a article with his or her personal writing style. If you need to write some content, you simply have to borrow information from other sources. It is called research. But the way you write ABOUT the information you find is what makes your content unique.

So don't just focus on writing content that will pass a online plagiarism checker. Write content that expresses your unique personality. Once you can do that, your content will be truly unique.

Good luck!

Hi. It just means that you have to write articles with your own words. As you said is so much information out there that it would be so easy to just copy but don´t do that. As you said, it has to be "Unique Conten" your own knowledge.

take care =)

Ahhhh.

Dude stop over thinking, we dont want you to have an anxiety attack or anything like that/

Basically, write good sh*t.

Thanks to all of you guys! Now the whole story is clear in my mind

Due to the recursive nature of linguistics, any phrase that has a logical meaning behind it can be said in infinitely many ways. It will be interesting to see how google's algorithms incorporate this for the future of internet.

With our exponential rate of information growth on the internet, pretty soon entire articles will be very close to being word for word similar to someone they've never even met writing about the same topic.

Alexa is spot on again. Just write something that's never been there. rephrase the whole paragraph and add in your own views or research should be good enough. At the end on the day, it still depends on duration of visit by the visitors, relevance and number to back links you get.