What To Put On Content Sites

I am constantly asked the following question:

“What should I put on my content sites?”

Of course they are asking about my traffic generation strategy where I recommend creating content sites and pushing the traffic to a product site.

Here are some possibilities to put on your content site:

1. A Resource Directory

Resource directories used to be a great form of content. Yahoo actually got it’s start as a resource directory. They are now the #2 most visited site on the entire Internet. The search engine ranking data (.RankingFactors.com) shows that outbound links are still a positive ranking correlation factor (even though so-called SEO “experts” moan about PR leak and other such nonsense). One problem with resource directories is the level that they have been abused lately with all of the Adsense scraper sites. There are literally hundreds of thousands of useless resource directories out there now that have been created with automation.

2. Articles

Articles are my very favorite form of content for content sites. They are perhaps the purest form of content. If you think about it, a blog post can almost always also be considered an article. In fact, you may see this very blog post appear as a syndicated article soon via Artemis Pro. If you want only your own articles on your content site, a blog is a great content management system. If you want to allow others to submit articles (and this is VERY POWERFUL!), then stay tuned. I will be releasing a product very soon that makes this very easy.

3. Product Reviews

A product review is really just a kind of article; isn’t it? Normally I recommend using content sites for driving traffic to your own sites. Product reviews can be a double-whammy though. You can use them as legitimate examples of pure content on your content site (to get visitors and push them to your product sites) AND you can also include affiliate links in the product review and make some direct income.

4. Surveys

It is difficult to get a survey to match up with the Ranking Factors data, but these are a very nice way to have your users add some content to your site.

5. Forums

Forums are also very difficult to get aligned with the Ranking Factors data. They are also notorious for advertising blind spots. The visitors really focus on the forum and will largely ignore your attempts to distract them to your product site. Still, they are a great way to get a large number of visitors generating content for you. That concept of getting your visitors to generate your content is important.

6. Blogs

I haven’t tried this, but I have seen it done. The idea is much like forums, but you are providing hosting for other people’s blogs in return for your ad being on their blog.

7. Downloads

If your market has anything to do with software, a download area can draw a lot of visitors. There are other markets that are also well-suited to downloads. The most common types other than software are covered in the next three types of content.

8. Pictures

Do you have a travel site you are trying to promote? How about a dating site? Or a photography site? These are obvious types of sites where a picture content site can help drive traffic. What about your topic? Are pictures something that will draw your type of visitors?

9. Videos

Videos are quickly becoming mainstream on the Internet. Although you will need to pay for quite a bit more bandwidth when offering videos, this type of content can match up with almost any topic of site.

10. Audios

Some sites can really benefit from audios. They will take less bandwidth than videos, but only makes sense for some topics of sites.

There are probably hundreds of types of content that I haven’t covered, but that should get you started. Remember that the point of the content sites is to provide traffic that you can distract to your product sites. That means:

1. The content needs to be quality content that actually provides value to the universe. You don’t want people arriving at your product site feeling that they have been tricked by some junk page generator.

2. You don’t need some huge variety of content. A site with 5 interesting articles about the topic of your product is just fine. A site with 500 interesting articles is even better. Don’t somehow convince yourself that 5 articles isn’t “enough”… that somehow you “need” a forum, a blog, and a picture download area. You don’t. Any single form of content in any quantity is just fine.

3. A form of content that allows your visitors to generate more content is most powerful. That way you don’t have to do the work to get the traffic… your visitors do. It also adds interactivity and a feeling of being a part of that site for your visitors which will help retain repeat visitors and increase word-of-mouth traffic. I highly recommend that you focus on some type of content that is provided primarily by your users (although you may have to “seed” it yourself).

OK; I hope that answers the question about what to put on content sites. Go get to work generating some serious traffic to your product pages from your new content sites now.

5 Print Ad Essentials!

Writing an effective print ad, particularly a classified advertisement, requires that you remember five essential points. Failure to implement these points correctly can cost you much in the way of time lost and a sale missed.

You’ve just cleaned out the attic and straightened up the garage. You’ve identified items you no longer need, but they certainly have a cash value to them. You could really use the money, but you don’t want to post the information on eBay. What to do? You create a classified ad!

Unlike in times past, the classified advertisement you run with your local paper will more than likely have exposure beyond the printed copy. Smart newspaper publishers, knowing the inroads that the internet has had on their businesses, now allow advertisers to have a copy of their advertisement appear online. This is important as newspaper readership is dropping rapidly as internet usage continues to climb sharply. Still, a printed copy is smart especially if the classified ad section of your local paper is popular.

When designing your ad, you need to come up with an eye grabbing title. The title you choose will help the reader decide whether they want to read more or continue scanning their eyes toward other ads.

List the item you are offering for sale predominately within the name of the title. If you have several items to sell, consider a catchy title such as, “30 Year Contents of Attic” which will indicate to readers that you probably have antiques. If you state, “Assorted Sporting Goods” you will attract people who are looking for a bowling ball, fishing equipment, children’s toys, etc. The key is attracting the reader and encouraging them to read your ad.

Beyond the title, the following five points will help you in your campaign:

1. Be descriptive The clearer you present what you have to offer for sale, the better your responses will be.

2. Do not abbreviate Not everyone understands what an abbreviation means. Spell it out and erase all doubt!

3. Specify the price Particularly if you are selling just one item, list the amount you want for that item.

4. Highlights I like ads that stand out. If the newspaper offers decorative symbols, characters, or fonts use them to draw the reader’s eyes to your listing.

5. Ad campaign One day listings only work for popular items. Do you believe your item will sell if you list it for just one day? If you list it longer, you can always cancel the ad. Remember to find out what the newspaper’s policy is about online ads too. Your buyer may only see the ad online.

Some newspapers will design the ad for you, if you find writing ad copy to be a difficult task. Not everyone is gifted in writing clear, concise copy. If they want your business, they should be happy to provide this service.

Study Proves That Headline Length Can Impact Profitability!

Recently, I monitored an interesting discussion in one of the forums about the length of headlines on sales pages. Some of the posters were in favor of longer headlines because they communicated more information and had a better chance of catching the interest of the prospect. Other posters claimed that some headlines were so long that they were confusing. Some even claimed that they would take away your breath if you attempted to read them aloud. One poster thought that very long headlines often appeared to be a run-on sentence… even if it technically wasn’t.

I decided it was time to do a study. I wanted to compare headlines on profitable sales pages to headlines on unprofitable ones. I wanted to find out if there really was a difference in the length of their headlines.

To perform that study, I first had to prepare a list of profitable sites and another list of unprofitable sites. I actually already had both due to another study I had recently performed. However, many of the unprofitable sites had disappeared from the Internet. I wasn’t surprised. Why stick around if you can’t make a profit; right?

I had to settle for comparing the headlines of profitable sales pages to the average sales page. I used my list of profitable sites and counted the words and characters in each headline. I skipped any site without a headline. I then looked at sites with ads running on the major search engine for the same product or service. I randomly picked one and also counted the words and characters in it’s headline for the control or average group.

The results were surprising. The average sales page has a headline of only 10 words comprising 55 characters. The profitable sales pages had and average of 14 words and 82 characters in their headlines.

We can conclude that profitable sales pages use longer headlines than the average sales page. That isn’t so surprising.

The other finding was much more surprising. With only a handful of exceptions in thousands of data points, a length longer than 150 characters was very rare. Can we conclude that extremely long headlines aren’t profitable? No; there are other possibilities. However, we can conclude that it is exceptionally rare for profitable sales pages to use headlines longer than 150 characters. In fact, 90% of the data points fell within 131 characters.

That is my new recommendation. I intend to only use headlines that are at least 80 characters long and no longer than 131 characters and I advise the same to my clients.

This places me right in the middle of the correlation group for profitable headlines. Your headline is an important factor to consider when you are optimizing sales. I hope you consider following suit. If so, let me know if this study has improved your results. I look forward to hearing from you.