No matter what online trends come and go, nothing will ever take the place of having tons of killer content that informs, inspires or entertains your target market. Having fresh content improves your search engine rankings, is an inexpensive way to drive visitors to your site, and is the ideal way to give people a taste of the value you offer. Content really is king on the Web.
Besides, even the fanciest Website won’t get people coming back for more (or coming by at all) if it doesn’t provide great information. This holds true for a basic service-provider Website as much as it does for an e-commerce site.
Every Website must have enough content to get site visitors’ (and search engines) attention, let prospects know what you’re selling and why they should buy, then convince them to take action. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
If you want to reach hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people on the Web without spending a fortune—creating compelling content is key. That means constantly coming up with new articles, blog posts, videos and/or audio podcasts.
But how do you do that when you’re already slammed trying to do everything else that goes into running a small business?
Well, you don’t have to be a fast writer—or even a writer at all (though that helps). Nor do you need to be a high tech wiz. You just need a few low- to no-cost tools and a plan for reusing and/or repurposing what you’ve got.
Below are four ways to generate tons of fresh content, and get it out on the Web, with way less effort…
1) Write it once, use it again and again.
Already write a regular newsletter or blog? Take your newsletter articles and post them directly to your blog (or vice versa). Put a few together and you’ve got an ebook in the making. Next, break your articles down into bite size chunks anywhere from 100-250 words in length.
Now get a free podcasting account at www.utterli.com and read your mini-articles into your phone to create your own audios quickly and easily. You can use a simple piece of code they provide to have your podcasts automatically post to your Website or blog too. Finally, spread your audios far and wide using podcast submission software.
2) Go from print to film.
If you don’t mind being in front of a camera, get a cheap FLIP video camera and record yourself reading your mini-articles to the camera. Or just ad lib down and dirty tips or ideas if you don’t have articles to pull from.
While the FLIP isn’t very high-tech, its idiot-proof software makes it a breeze to edit and upload your videos to the Web in minutes. With a little more tech-savvy you can strip the audio from the video and use that as a podcast (letting you skip the podcast-creation step in #1).
Now post your video to your blog, your Facebook page, and your other social networking sites. Then submit your video online to multiple sites using a service like www.tubemogul.com.
3) Use public speaking to generate boatloads of content without writing a thing.
If you do any kind of speaking engagements, simply pick up an inexpensive digital audio recorder (I use an Olympus DS-2 that cost about $100 years ago.) and record your talks. Then have the recorded audio transcribed, and you’ve got reams of writing to pull from to create articles for your blog or your newsletter, online article submissions, or even an ebook or book. You can also edit your recorded talk down into smaller chunks of audio perfect for podcasting.
4) Tweet and bookmark your way into the public eye.
Once you’ve got all this killer content going out into the world, it’s time to let the world know. So anytime you post a new audio, video or article (whether on your own Website or blog, or elsewhere), pop on Twitter and Tweet about it. Be sure to include the link back to your content when you do. Then use social bookmarking sites like Digg and Stumblupon to spread the word even further.
