Content marketing is increasing in importance each day for many top businesses that understand that content is king on the Internet, and is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website on a continual basis.
More traffic means more registered users for your email newsletter and more prospective customers for the products and services you sell. If you are selling ebooks, webinars, courses, or coaching services, content will be an essential part of your business for two reasons.
The first reason is because offering compelling, high-quality content is the best way to position yourself as an expert in your industry or niche.
The second reason is that whatever free content you put on your site to educate readers and attract visitors to your site through the search engines is basically a free sample of all you have to offer. The free content will lead people to make a purchasing decision about the paid content.
Remember that the higher your price point, the more impressive your content will need to be, offering real in-depth expertise. But any content online is better than no content if you want to market yourself effectively in the following ways:
+Build Your Personal Brand
Your content should be unique to you and carry your own distinctive viewpoint and ‘voice’. It should never be copied from others (plagiarism is theft) or bought as Private Label Rights (PLR) content and just thrown up on your site as is. Your online reputation can be made or broken through these sorts of attempts to trick people or run your business in a half-hearted manner.
By all means use PLR as inspiration for your content, if it is appropriate to your niche, but always edit it to be sure to avoid the search engine duplicate content penalties and show you truly know what you are talking about. No one can be an expert on everything.
You can see the people who buy PLR content about ‘hot topics’ and never specialize, versus experts who focus on their niche and live and breathe it. Sure, online poker is a hot topic, but would you want your name on a book about it, and is there a paying market, with lots of people actually willing to buy a book on the subject? If you are not sure, research your niche and your keywords and then start planning your content strategy.
All your content should be geared towards helping you establish a solid, reputable brand which embodies value and honesty by creating high quality, unique content for a certain niche market. In this way people will value what you have to teach.
You will not just start to appeal to consumers, you will discover that many potential business partners and consulting clients will also start to appear in your life. You might even begin to attract angel investors or venture capitalists who are impressed with your content offerings.
+Build Trust Through Accurate and Reliable Content
A customer would much rather spend their money on and place their trust in an industry leader who has a proven track record of producing a lot of quality content rather a site that is clearly out there to sell any old ebook.
By all means write about and develop content for topics that you are genuinely interested in and well-informed about. For example, our group of writers are all interested in Internet marketing, but we have deep knowledge of other subjects as well, including finance, health, travel, technology and self-help topics.
These other interests make our writing and our perspectives on these topics unique to us. You as a writer and expert will have your own interests, experiences and expertise. You will want to develop your own style and voice, like top marketers Russell Brunson, Jonny Andrews and Joan Mullally. You should not just be out there to sell a product.
Your content should reflect who you are and what you know. It should serve as free samples of all you have to offer and be the gateway to a great user experience on your website.
Show what you know through your content marketing, and you will soon develop a loyal group of followers and eventually customers, all convinced that you are offering them the solutions they are looking for. That is the best way to grow your business.
Further Reading
Courses
Guides
How to Brand Your Online Business
How to Conduct Keyword Research for Online Profits
How to Research a Niche for Online Profits
How to Make Money Using Private Label Rights (PLR) Products
