Nearly every every blog that deals with internet marketing has quipped at some point that, “Content is king.” The old saying could be better stated as: Great content is king. Anybody and a monkey can set up a blog in 15 minutes. It takes hard work, expertise and crazy analysis to write stuff worth reading.
This basic factor is behind subscriptions, building trust to market affiliate programs, building links to dominate the search engines, everything good and holy comes from great content. Of course, this obvious point just begs the question: what makes content great? In a nutshell, whatever kicks the reader into “action mode”, whether the action is a subscription, sale or buzz from their own site.
There is some variation according to niche and field, but experience shows that there are multiple key concepts that make content great. These concepts aren’t mutually exclusive, meaning you can use one or more at the same time.
The Art of Sticky
The end result of something being considered “great content” is for the content to simply “stick” in the minds of the reader to the extent that one associates a specific concept with the article about that concept that you’ve written. Great copywriting content is information that’s been branded.
I must admit, I’m an easily branded person. When I think of cavemen I think of Gieco. When I think of ducks, I think of Aflac. When I think of blogging I think of Darren. When I think of “comic evil” I think of John Chow.
Pathetic? Perhaps, but it’s an inherent fact of branding and marketing. Great content is copy that brands a certain impression into the minds of the readers. When you think of a concept and a post/article comes to mind, that webmaster succeeded. That’s great content.
There are nearly an infinite ways to brand themes as part of a textual marketing campaign, but the main threads can be experimented with until achieved.
Be a Trailblazer, Start Something New
As the old saying goes, “There is nothing new under the sun.” So when someone “breaks” new content or new ideas, especially a great idea, or one that works, that person is branded with the content.
Seth Godin and Permission Marketing, Richard Dawkins and the Meme, Timothy Ferris and the Four Hour Workweek — these men are idea creators. Their content was great because it was new, and it had an impact. We’ll talk more about it later on this page.
Starting a new concept is risky. If it backfires, the negative response of the content’s flaws will be equivocated with your identity, your brand. Of course, getting one new idea correctly can reverse all of that. New ideas are the new currency of the new civilization. Don’t be afraid to think new thoughts.
Start new ideas.
Write Authority Articles and Guides
Some people are information creators, like Godin and Ferris. Others are information repackagers. There’s a lot of information out there. A lot. And it needs to be organized and sorted for ease-of-use, otherwise the information won’t be understood properly.
Think of this style as being an online librarian of ideas. A library full of books in a disorganized haphazard manner is simply a waste of building. Enter librarians. These individuals sort the books and the library’s content making it easy to get the books needed.
To condense and coherently organize information requires writing comprehensive articles that simply cover the whole topic. Analyze your niche and put it into 10 or so categories. For each category, put everything you know about the category into one well organized article. Instant “link bait”.
If you do a great job you’ll gain credibility, will be hailed and an expert and will have a one-stop-shop for that sub-niche topic. This article can serve as a cornerstone to your website or blog. A “quick” way to build a comprehensive post is to build a list. Unfortunately, lists are often overdone and are seen in the internet marketing community as pure “link bait”.
A comprehensive article can’t be quickly done, even if it’s organized in a list fashion. Do the list well and you’ll get an outlandish response. Do it poorly, and you pass up a chance to gain a significant amount of recognition.
People will take notice because being able to instruct a “newbie” in the field is one of the most important aspects of link building. People rarely like describing huge, drawn out concepts to others. I’d rather link someone to a how-to article rather than write a 4 page article on it. Other people are no different. So be helpful and give them something to link to.
Be comprehensive.
Be Remarkably Different
My hat goes off to famous Permission Marketer Seth Godin. Seth introduced the idea of what he calls the “Purple Cow” concept. Don’t just do a great job, do a remarkable job. If your style or content isn’t different in some manner, people will just pass you up.
He calls this the Purple Cow concept for a reason. If you are driving along the road, you won’t notice many cows. See one, you’ve seen them all. It doesn’t even matter if the cow is really, really, really good at chewing the cud. It’s just a cow.
Now, if you see a purple cow, you’ll sit up and take notice. You’ll probably pull over and let the lady and kids look, pet and take their pictures with the purple cow. A purple cow is different. It’s remarkable. That’s great marketing, and applying it to content is great content and great copywriting.
Several months ago I launched a website dealing with the purpose of marketing both to atheists and fundamentalist Christians. My purpose was to write articles bridging the gap between the faithful and the rational. The response was huge, with tens of thousands of visitors coming through social networking sites like Stumble Upon. The website was different, though the content wasn’t necessarily original.
Part of being a textual purple cow is repackaging old information in a snazzy way. Look for cliches. Now write something that argues for the cliche in a non-cliche manner. That’s a purple cow.
Be a purple cow.
Make Them Feel as You Do
Some web pages aren’t really useful, but still get passed on through email forwards, forums, and blog postings. Funny videos of a fat guy dancing around and singing, comedians making fun of trips to the grocery store, or political rants and raves. These pages are based on an emotional content model.
Great content plays on emotion, whether that is happiness, drama, or the dreamy thoughts of becoming wealthy.
DoshDosh , an internet marketing and social media blog, wrote a fantastic article describing which emotions to appeal to when creating content. Of the main emotions that work best, surprise, joy, sadness, anger, fear and disgust ranked among the top.
This content is great for a simple reason: it ignites feeling. Humans are outrageously emotional creatures, and make most decisions based on emotion. In light of this, seeing a video of a marketer telling us about a product is much more likely to convince us to purchase a product. We empathize with the person in the video, because we see and hear them.
Great content capitalizes on emotion.
And Great Content is…
Great content is simply whatever gets a bigger positive reaction. It’s that simple. To see what kind of content goes best with your style, you’ll simply have to experiment. Write an article or two trying out each style, submit them to social networks, tell other bloggers, then sit back and see what happens. Whichever method gets the most positive feedback is your winner.
For me in this niche, the strongest response is through the condensed authority model. In most other niches, I rely on the purple cow. It’s hard to predict which will work best with what niche.
Final Thoughts about Content Creation
One of the most bitter facts about internet marketing is that most webmasters read more about internet marketing than they do actually marketing. This isn’t just a waste of time, it’s counter-productive. In this business it’s not about head knowledge, it’s about application. Knowledge is only as valuable as how much its used.
Building a winning website is outrageously simple, it just requires a lot of time and work. Once you have your site up and running, just focus on link building and writing great content. Without outside support, it’s almost impossible to stay focused, especially if you’re like me.
If you run a website and aren’t meeting your monetization goals, click here and learn more about why some websites fail , and how you can jump-start your site. Don’t buy into the hype that internet marketing is some complicated black-magic, because it really isn’t hard to make money with a website. It’s as easy as content + link building. Read more in the article.
Remember, the guide is one of the “cornerstones” of this website, so make sure to click here and read it .
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