Now that you have settled for a look and feel, it is time to add some content. This is where the profitability of your content site lies. Where do you begin? Well, you could always randomly write about any topic in your niche.
A better way though is to do some research and organize your site optimally. This will go a long way in turning your site into search engine bait. When you’ve got plenty of bait lying around, you will find that visitors from search engines will form a major part of your site’s traffic population.
What’s so wow about search engine traffic? Well, to start off with, it’s free traffic. But the one thing that makes it stand out is the fact that with a search engine, your visitors are actually looking for you and not you trying to entice them to you (as you would with advertising).
Before you can research and organize your site in a way that will attract search engines, you must first know how search engine works. Though I could probably write it all out here for you, I think it would be better that you read Dan Thies’ “Search Engine Fast Start“. It is a fantastic guide. A bit more on the technical side but it is absolutely free. Don’t worry if you don’t quite get it the first time around. Read it again.
If you’re still finding it hard to understand what Dan’s trying to say, then check out the Day 3 of the SBI Action Guide (also free), which covers basically the same thing in a friendlier way, for common folks like us. Equally fantastic.
After reading one of the guides … or both, if you’re ambitious … you’ll realize that keyword research plays an important part when choosing a topic to base your content on. Although you can write about anything and everything, it would be wiser to start off with content that would attract more search engine traffic.
What sort of keywords are you looking for?
Well, for starters, keywords that:
- people are actually using in their searches.
- are popular (high demand), i.e. not just searched once or twice a month by the general internet population.
- are not being widely used by other web sites to optimize their web pages (low supply), i.e. less competition.
- are used by people who are actually in a buying state of mind. If you want to sell your products, it would be best if you could attract those who are actually doing searches to actually buy your type of product.
That’s just something to help you get started.
How do you go about finding keywords?
Well, there are actually several keyword research tools at your disposal. If SBI is your chosen web building tool, then it comes with it’s own keyword research tool. Just type in a phrase that defines your site niche and the software will bring back a list of keywords together with the demand for those keywords and the existing supply. All else being equal, the higher the demand to supply ratio for any keyword, the better it is.
If you’re not using SBI, don’t fear. There are many keyword research tools out there that you can use. A great software to use to start out with is a free keyword research tool - Good Keywords. Good Keywords will actually brainstorm a list of keyword phrases based on a word or phrase you type in. It will also show you how many times the keyword term has been searched for. All that’s missing is the supply numbers. You can always do this manually by going to a search engine and typing in the keyword phrase and then noting down how many the total search results are. Remember that you should just do this with just one search engine, so that your numbers are not skewed.
If you don’t have time to do all that, then you should give WordTracker a go. WordTracker will also do a lateral search, i.e. a search for terms that are related to your keyword but is not included in the term. They have a free trial version that you can play around with. And if you need more keywords than the free trial has to offer, a 1 day subscription to WordTracker is only $7.96. I’ve subscribed to the one day subscription a couple of times and each time I have received more than my 1 day allotment.
If you have a niche with straight forward keywords, then WordTracker is more than enough to find heaps of profitable keywords you can base your content on. I have, however, experienced niches where I just can’t seem to figure out what keywords my target audience use. There are literally thousands of ways a person can type in a string of words to find you. I have come across times when I get lots of traffic but conversion rates (sales) are dismal. The trick is also sometimes, related to knowing how people search. Some words suggest that they’re after free information and other words suggest that they’re actually in a buying mode.
There’s probably a course out there that will teach you all this but an easier way that I’ve turned to is just to hire people who have experience in this area. In particular, I am referring to the Keyword Reseach Report by SEOResearch labs. I think their fees are reasonable, below $100. And it saves me a lot of time and brain power. 
Write articles based on good keywords
After you have a list of good keywords to base your content on and an optimized content layout, it is actually time to write out your content. It is best to write your own content. Having original content will increase the value of your web site and protect you from “duplicate content” which is not looked at favourably by Google.
But if you can’t write your own content(if English is your second language or something) then you can easily outsource it to ghostwriters at Guru.com or Elance.
But remember that it is always best to use your own original content. Go halfway if you have to. Write out ideas for your article in point form and then hire someone to just make it into a proper article.
Before you go with this avenue though, have a read of Make Your Content Presell. It’s another free guide that will teach you how to write content that will reap you profits.
If, after reading Make Your Content Presell, you decide that you absolutely cannot write and can’t afford to hire a ghostwriter, then here are some other alternatives to getting content:
- Reprint articles from article databases.
- Use public domain content.
- Purchase articles with reprint rights.
- And the latest trend is to just grab RSS feeds from other sites and syndicate it on your website.
The problem with the alternatives is you have much less control over the content since they are not yours. You may not be able to optimize the content as you would with your own articles. Plus Google will not rank your pages as high.
Optimize your content
When writing out your content, there are certain steps that you need to take to optimize it for the search engines. Since search engine logarithms are constantly changing, I’ll just mention those things commonly known to increase your content’s search engine friendliness. All you have to do is scatter your keyword phrase across the web page that you’re trying to optimize with that particular keyword. Have it in your:
- Headline
- Your first paragraph
- Your last paragraph
- Your web page description
- Your web page keyword meta tag
- Your link text
- Your web page URL
This is by no means the only thing you have to do to get your pages ranking well. But it IS the first step. If your competitors are not aware of this, you’ll be way ahead of them. More on optimizing your web pages can be found in Dan Thies’ “Search Engine Fast Start“.
How do you add content to your site?
With SiteBuildIt, it is simply a matter of clicking on the “Edit Home Page” or “Add a Page” button. Then, you will be asked for a “Page Title”, “Keywords”, “Description”, “Headline” and “Body Copy”. SBI will actually advise you on how to write these out. You can then analyze your web page and SBI will advise you on what needs to be changed or if everything is ok and ready to go live.
With XSitePro, the process is similar. The only difference is, you are using a software on your desktop. So, you don’t have to worry about your session timing out. And you don’t have to be online to add your content.
With WordPress, you click on “Write Post” and all you have to do is fill in your “Title” and your content goes into the “Post” textarea. You can set a name for your web page URL using “Post slug”.
Here’s what you have to do, if you were to use a normal web editing program. Check out this Nvu video tutorial on how to add content to your web pages.
