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Wednesday, July 23, 2008

You Gotta Have Content

It takes many different things to build an internet business - a market, a product, prospects. But the most important thing is (drumroll please) content.


Content! What's that? And how can it help me build a business? Let me give you some examples from personal experience.


I'm browsing through my email and I see one with the subject line "Learn My Email Marketing Secrets". So I open the email and it explains how the sender used email marketing to boost his sales and how he can help me do the same thing. It doesn't tell me how, but it provides a link that supposedly will tell me all I need to know. Intrigued, I click on the link provided and am taken to a sales page for a $97 dollar training package. Annoyed, I close the page, delete the email and go on about my own business.

I continue scrolling through my mailbox. I see another. This one reads "Does Your Downline Suffer from NBT Syndrome?" This one really catches my eye. What is NBT Syndrome? Does my downline have it? Is it a good thing? I need to know. I open the email. Again, another email telling me how the author has had experience this problem in his own business. And if I just click the link provided, he'll tell me how to handle it. For a minute I hesitate. It's probably another sales letter. But I click anyway, just to see and ...Surprise! There are several paragraphs that explain how new network marketers don't always understand the business and jump from one opportunity to another in search of the "Next Big Thing" that will make them rich overnight - and leaving their sponsors discouraged by all the attrition. It gave some personal examples and offered some suggestions on how to deal with that problem in my own downline. It was good information but not very in-depth. I needed to know more. And you know what. At the very bottom of the page was the offer. For $39.95 I could learn more. Guess what...I bought the book. Why? Why this one and not the other? It wasn't the price. It was the fact that the author already gave me enough information to show me he knew what he was talking about. I knew his book would be a good value. And he obviously cared about me more than his sales because he shared such great information with me FREE! Who wouldn't want to support such an individual by purchasing his book.

The point is just that little bit of content made the difference between sale and no sale. Content is vital and you need to use it everywhere you can. In your sales copy, on your website, in your free reports or other viral marketing tools. Besides attracting more and better prospects, you'll also attract search engine attention. Search engines love content rich sites. Want to move up the page rankings? Add some fresh, meaty content to your site regularly.

"But I don't know how to get content." Well if you can't develop or write content of your own, there are other ways to get it.

You can hire someone to write it for you.

You can check out free sources of content on the internet. One of my favorites is Articles Factory (www.articlesfactory.com).

You can buy products that come with resale or private label rights. This allows you to use the content in your own products. Many of the ebooks and training courses I purchase come with resale rights which allows me to resell the product and keep the profit. Private label rights allows me to brand the product as my own - even better.

If you need to revamp your website to make it more content rich and don't know where to begin, I suggest you start by purchasing Site Build It! (http://buildit.sitesell.com/wealthtogether.html). SBI! assumes you know nothing about building an online business (and yet, it is invaluable for the advanced Webmaster, too). It provides everything you need. It will help you create, host, and market a website that is consistently ranked in the top 1% - 3%.

Spice up your business life with a little content.

4 comments:

Heidi Richards Mooney, Founder Women in Ecommerce said...

I totally agree!

Content is Queen - the right kind of content that adds value that is. Not all the garbage out thee that tricks the search engines to get higher rankings. I appreciate your blog as it is filled with great information.

In fact, I am going to list it on the Where Women Prosper blog during our first blog carnival next week. I am gathering content as we speak. Thanks for yours!

Heidi Richards Mooney - Founder
Women's eCommerce Association - www.wecai.org

Anonymous said...

In the beginning I believe potential customers would like to know that you really do have something of value to offer them so giving them something for free works to your advantage in the long run. Th e problem with some customers though is they want MORE FREE than they're willing to pay for.

Another fabulous post!

Anonymous said...

Hi M,

You are right. I spend a lot of time preparing my free reports, articles, and other information items. They are so important to get people started, and see the value in doing business with you.

We are all so jaded because of past experiences. How many dollars have we spend on information products that gave us stuff that we already knew cold? We want to see that the author or company is going in the direction that we want to go, and has the expertise to take us there.

Thank you for great ideas.

Sally
www.drsallywitt.com

Claudia Meydrech said...

Good post, Melodianne!

At first my mind was thinking "content" as in being happy with the way things are, then I realized it was the OTHER "content", but I guess you would have been more content, the happy kind, if the emails you had deleted had more...content. Oy! I'm getting myself confused:-)

God bless!
Claudia @ Selling With Articles