Developing Compelling Content On Purpose
By Robert Smith   ©2004 All Rights Reserved

I'm going to give you the benefit of what took me years to figure out on my own. This is one path to success in the information age. Every known media uses it to sell virtually anything. I can boil it down to one word.
"Content" Gold is valuable because it's scarce. Content is information that has a high value to a targeted niche. Your content is information in which you have a special expertise. Its value comes from the fact that you know it and others don't. The Internet is a pull medium; you "attract" people to your website by offering them your valuable information.
Give First, Then Ask. Good content has the power to set you above the crowd as an expert. Communicating your passion through your content is your own personal key to attracting targeted traffic to your web site. Compelling content is evidence of what you have to give - not what you want to get! You can't buy the kind of traffic that free content will attract to your site, not at any price. If money is water, then content is the pump. Ninety percent of a commercial website's content should be free, with about 10% directed to revenue generation. The good news is you don't have to come up with all of the content yourself.
Communicate Your Purpose Nothing attracts traffic better than a clearly communicated mission statement. You should be able to define your mission in a sentence or less. Understanding your mission helps you stay focused. Developing content supporting your mission is the magic that attracts everything else. Boil your mission down - then communicate it up-front. Everything you do should support your passion. As you develop content for your website, choose products that serve your niche. If your current content doesn't promote your mission, dump it and develop content that does.
Developing Compelling Content You do have an opt-in email list don't you? If you don't, that's the first place to start. Offer to update your visitors with information or resources within your special expertise. They will want to be on your mailing list because it was your expertise that attracted them in the first place. You can write original articles or reports. Start by regularly emailing them to your house list. However, don't stop there, spend time reaching out to others within your niche. Allow them to reprint your work in order to add value their content. Include a little about yourself and your mission at the bottom of each article. If you maintain a website, newsletter or special reports, include appropriate links within a resource box at the bottom. You can find sources of great content all over the Internet, in newsgroups, forums and on other websites. Negotiate WIN-WIN trades of content with your "so-called" competitors. Empower your content with your own passion, simply by putting it into your own words.
Additional Sources Of Valuable Content

• Give and get testimonials for products you value
• Ask others to link to your website's content pages
• Offer commissions or discounts to your competitors
• Become a re-seller to profit from your off-site links
• Exchange advertising, articles, and reports with others.
• I nstall scripts to interact with your visitors.
• Offer downloads of freeware, shareware and demos.
• Video clips, photos, graphics and sound can all be used.

Develop A Portal A Portal is a website that offers a variety of specific information within a narrow defined niche. Portals offer "added value" to your content by linking your visitors to similar resources. You can attract traffic using the synergy of a Portal. You can leverage the efforts of others as well by sharing their content. In addition, you can create diversity and additional revenue streams by offering external resources or by selling advertising. The disadvantage of a Portal strategy is risking sending your valuable traffic elsewhere. You can mitigate this risk by forming web-rings and link exchanges with similar websites. In theory, web-rings and exchanges return at least as many visitors as they cost, with a big advantage going to the better websites
Content Is King Marketing without content is like offering commercials without the programming. No one is interested. Websites without compelling content simply do not attract or retain visitors. Without a steady stream of return visitors, you will get very few sales. Content is king, not only on-line but everywhere. It has always has been the key. To attracting targeted customers in virtually all media forms. Use your valuable targeted content to establish your expertise, build relationships, and attract more customers.

helps thousands successfully market their Internet based home business. You'll find tons of free marketing tools & resources on his Internet Marketing web site at:http://www.smithfam.com/

You can reach him by phone at: (541) 689-1847 PST, and by email at. <bob@smithfam.com>

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