Chapter 2

[Bruceper]

Chapter 2 - Someone should give me free content, I can't make it myself!

If that's your attitude then you will fail miserably. Remember the hint earlier about hard work? This is where the hard work really starts.

You have to have traffic to your site if you want it to succeed. Have you ever been surfing the net and came across a forum on a topic you were really interested in and there were only 3 posts on the whole forum? You didn't stay long did you? Well neither will your visitors if your site doesn't have content.

So where can you get content? From anywhere. Yes there are content brokers out there who will sell you a database and that's a great place to start. On my site I sell databases and DMOZ slices. But that's not the end of your search for content. It can't be!

So why isn't it the end of your search? If you think about it for a minute, you will realize that anyone that comes to my site can buy a database if they have a couple dollars. Then you come to the realization that if they can buy the same database as you, then you both have the exact same information on your sites. What good is that? It's not.

After you buy a database you need to customize it, personalize it, add in your own links and your own information. Make what you have unique. Look across the internet for articles relating to your product or theme. Look for sites that aren't listed in your database.

You can add a blog to your site and write down personal comments about your theme or just use the blog to detail changes and additions to your site. Something like this is unique because it deals with what is happening to your site, not on someone else's site.

Add an RSS feed about your topic or theme. There are thousands of free RSS feeds available and many are updated hourly or daily. This gives you constantly updated data on your site that your visitors are looking for and it may give you data that no other site is using.

There are thousands of free ebooks available on the net. There are even directory sites that list those free ebooks. Add some of them to your site.

Remember we talked about fishing-links.com and all the categories you could add on a site like that. Well you can add links related to those categories. For the fishing rods category you can add dozens of sites about fishing rods, but how about boats or trucks? Instead of just listing sites with links to trucks and boats, why can't you list the specifications of those products?

For example, in the trucks category you could list a truck model and list the different engine sizes available, the cab size, towing capacity, whether it comes in four wheel drive or not and so on. For boats you could do the same thing, list available options, motor sizes, boat length and width, weight etc. You could do the same with a lot of the categories.

Sure doing all that takes time. But if you don't want to take the time then why do you expext someone to show up at your site when they can find what they want almost anywhere else?

Your site is only as good as the content your offer.

This is why I do not like big huge general directory sites. Big directories are all over the net anyways. Take a look at DMOZ.org, or google or yahoo or anywhere else that offers a search engine. Almost all of them offer a directory of some type. But what those sites don't do is capitolize on the amount of new sites that show up every day that are specific to a single category or topic.

I run a directory with just over 300 links. Yet Googles directory of the same topic lists 27 sites! Who has more information for the user? Yes it's me. The site gets great traffic and makes a decent income. It specializes in one topic and users looking for sites about that topic are finding it easily and using it often. I also entice users to continue using my site by offering a category where they must sign up to view the contents. This category lists bonifide distributors and manufacturers of the product the site specializes in. No other directory on the net offers this!

Yes this data is available on the internet by searching. But by offering information that only I have gathered up and placed in one spot they can save themselves hours of searching for the same amount of links as I have offered in one spot.

So what is the benefit to making them join the site? The benefit is that I get their email address which I can use to send related information to them with. By sending them an email once a month they keep informed of what is going on with the site, and I can include a link to a new related site I am starting, or an advertisement for them to click on. You can find more on this in Chapter 6.

Once you get your content on your site it is a matter of time before someone enthusiastic about your topic will come by and decide they want to share their own links. Or a new site owner will come by and add their site to your directory so they can hopefully share in the outgoing traffic you offer by people clicking on their link. Adding a site to a directory like mine or yours takes a few hours or maybe a day. Getting your site added into Google or Yahoo can take months.

New links can sure add up fast on a general directory. On a specialized directory it could take days between submisisons. And that's fine. Remember it is a singular topic you're talking about on your site, not about anything and everything.

The more links you get by submission the bigger your site becomes and eventually your site is the defacto standard for finding information and links on a specific topic. Wouldn't that be nice? It can happen, and very easily.

There are thousands of topics you can choose from that may or may not have other sites that will compete with you. Competing with another site is a good thing. It means you need to keep up with them and keep doing things better and adding more content so you're not left in the dust.

So whether you buy content, make it yourself, find it for free or beg for it, there is simply no getting around the fact that you need to have it before anyone else will start sharing it.

Copyright 2007 Bruce Peresky - All Rights Reserved - No duplication permitted without written permission from the author

[Reprobate]

Just finished reading chapters 1 and 2. Looking forward to the next one!

[FSGDAG]

Agreed! These are great reads! Keep them coming Bruce!

[mpdaddy]

More Beer! More Beer! More Beer! Oh wait? Wrong forum? I read both and I have to say that I am looking forward to the rest of the book. I will patiently wait for them and have another beer in the meantime.

Keep em coming!