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Finding Content Ideas

March 12, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Many bloggers, or would-be-bloggers, end up with the same old cry of “I don’t know what to write about!” Well, the answer is “WRITE SOMETHING! QUICK!” I always like to think of writing a blog post like going to a botanical center, or a friend’s house that has a pond full of koi. I always like to feed them, and when you drop in food, they always rush and bump into each other, each frantically trying to get to the food. (the same activity can be seen in the popular game Insane Aquarium.) Your content is the food, and Google / Your audience are the koi. They are waiting there for your next post.

So where do you get ideas?

Well, you can wait for Chris Brogan to post another 100 Ideas for Bloggers on his blog. But the best way to never run out of ideas is to make yourself an editorial calendar. You can use a regular calendar, a Google Calendar like Steve Rubel, or even Microsoft Excel like Andy Wibbels does.  I started using the Andy Wibbels spreadsheet last week, and it has proved useful every day.   I have days marked with Content, Community, Commerce, Facebook, Social networks so I know what I can talk about on a certain day.  By getting into this habit, your readers will also know what to expect.  Now everybody knows that I should be talking about “content” on Wednesdays.

Content is so important to the web, from getting a good PR, to simply providing something useful.

Where do you get your ideas from?

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It REALLY Is About The Content

March 4, 2008 By 2 Comments

After all of the advances in Internet technology, and the sheer number of useful and creative web sites that have been developed since then, one single thing continues to drive visitors to sites, and in turn make money for some, lose it for others who don’t understand it – content.

What is this mysterious word they call content? Like many things, content means different things to different people. But one thing is for certain: Those who know how to produce it, benefit from it. Those that do not are harmed by not having it.

Content.

Your own content, other people’s content, computer generated content, user generated content, it’s different but yet all the same. Someone, somewhere, has to create it. And someone, somewhere has to put it together and present it to the rest of us.

Back when Yahoo started its rise to power on the Internet, it’s content was generated through one of the very first “web spiders” that would go out, collect information, which would then be categorized, and presented in the Yahoo directory. The content was collected and presented, but technically the creators weren’t writing the content themselves, their robot was collecting the data. Then came user submissions. Suddenly you have millions of people all submitting – not content – but merely links to content, in essence generating UN-content which was then turned into content.

I am about to save you a lot of money. If you look at ClickBank, or search the Internet on how to make money online, you will eventually be enticed to buy a $197 package that has “detailed case studies” and today’s hottest thing – online videos for you to watch.

They all come down to the same basic principles:

#1 – Find a product to market

#2 – Write content

There you have it. Now fork over the $197. I have read countless numbers of eBooks on how to quit your day job, retire early, get rich on the Internet, and even Tim Ferris’s book on the Four Hour Work Week… it all, unfortunately, comes down to finding a product/service and writing content.

NOT sales content. REAL content.

One good, 300 word post a day on a blog, or one article a day on a regular web site can be good content. But you have to keep it up. If you knew that a 300 word article a day would someday be worth $1000-$2000/day… wouldn’t you do it?

With real content comes real community. With real community comes user-generated content, which should complement, not replace, your own original content otherwise your community will get bored.

If you want to attract a community, you have to keep generating content. Otherwise they can, and will, find another web site whose owners WILL write that 300 word article a day.

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Back in the Old Days Before Web Ads

February 23, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Many people like to believe there was a time in the olden days of the Internet when there were no ads on web sites.  While technically true since the ad serving technologies that exist today were many years to come, it can be argued that most web sites in and of themselves – were advertisements.   Warner Bros. advertised their movies,  Playboy advertised its magazine, etc.

What everybody can agree on, is that in the beginning – content was king.

We developed web sites because it was fun, because we enjoyed a subject, because we delighted in knowing that the more we put out there on this new playground, the more people will see it.  We loved seeing our stats rise and rise, not because our wallets were getting fatter, but because it meant we were reaching people.

Then, boom – here come ads.

There was a change.  Suddenly we weren’t making content just because we liked it anymore, we were making content so we had more pages to put ads on.   Instead of one HTML page for oua particular thought or subject, we split it into two, placing ads on the top and bottom, with a “read more” button down below to force more ad clicks.

And people responded by learning how to ignore ads.

Many people often ask “how can I make money on the Internet.”  The same can be said about writing a book, or finding fulfillment in your life… write what you know and love.  The rest will follow.  If you were around back in 1994/95 and part of the Internet explosion, remember what that felt like.  You can still put your Google Adsense ads or whatever on your site, but go back to your roots and write some real content.

You may  amaze yourself by the results.

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