Today’s guest post is written by Corry Cummings. Corry is the owner of Content Customs, a content creation company that specializes in high quality web content writing services. He also runs a blog over at Content Customs, which is managed and written by one of the head writers of the company.
One of the most important considerations for web site owners and web developers is content. Nothing has the potential to offer more visibility and better returns on investment than content. Unlike other marketing techniques, content works when you are not. This means that it is one of the major ways to secure the new American dream – passive income. However, it is not as simple as choosing a web site template and throwing some content up. There are generally 5 steps to making monetary gains with your content.
1. Perform Some Keyword Research
One of the first things that you should do (arguably before you even pick a web site topic) is perform some simple keyword research. Try to find keywords that web site surfers typically search for yet have limited competition. This may be difficult at first. Keyword research can take anywhere from a few hours to several weeks. Be patient and find the markets in which you can compete. Your ample research will pay off in the end.
2. Observe the Basics of Search Engine Optimization in Your Content
When you first start developing content to make money on a web site, you must simply follow the basics of search engine optimization. Extensive search engine optimization can greatly slow down your initial efforts. It is much better to initially get some well written content on your web site that makes it a valuable resource than to spend weeks getting each page finalized before publication. At first, simply remember that your keyword phrases should be at least 2% of your total word count for each page
3. Establish a Target Audience
Recognize the traffic that you want to get and make sure your content addresses that audience directly. If you are catering to professionals, your web site will need to have a professional, non-conversational tone and include plenty of facts and statistics. However, if you are targeting a much younger or casual audience, your content must be casual and conversational. All of the traffic in the world is worthless unless you create a service that your visitors want and consider to be a valuable addition to their lives.
4. Secure Affiliate Offers and Products
This should be a rather obvious step. If you have nothing to sell or promote, you cannot make any money. Choose products that you can promote indirectly through content. It is absolutely crucial that you choose affiliates that relate to your content. You cannot expect to secure memberships or make sales if you attempt to sell dog collars on a web site that promotes video games. If you can gear your content to identify a problem that your visitors may have, you can easily solve that problem with one of your promoted products.
5. Launch Your Ongoing Content Marketing Campaign
Once you have your web site developed to the point that it can attract visitors and sell services or products, it is time to begin advertising. You can choose to target social media, blogs and other related web sites. Your main consideration is to exchange or build logical and valuable links back to your original content. Yes, this means that you might need to write some content for free. However, this is one of the only sure fire ways to build visibility and ongoing traffic to your web site.
You want your content to work for you. If the content is written properly, then there is no reason why the content does not make you money for years. It is also important however, that you market your content and build links to each page. Even if you decide to use a writing service of some sort, you still need to spend a lot of time putting together a content plan. You should thoroughly plan out each and every piece of content. This will insure that your not wasting any time, and that each page will work for you.
Finding your audience is really crucial and from my experience, it's really never what you expect. You can use Compete and Alexa to get some kind of idea of your readers but take it with a grain of salt.
I was most surprised to see my blog visited by a much older crowd than I thought I was speaking to. Without trying to alienate anyone, I began a process of shifting gears to talk to the "person" that reads my blog.
It's helpful to imagine your reader within the ideal light, do some research into what that age group is concerned about, what interests them – afterward, you can craft your content which speaks directly to them.
Each of the other items are very essential too – SEO to get found, planning your promotion and making sure your niche is profitable (if you're going to make money) by seeing which products move.
Very interesting post – well thought out.