You Need Content
“Creating a lot of content,” is a really fuzzy sort of thing, isn’t it? I’m sure lots of marketers you’ve been learning from have told you to do just that. They’ve told you to create a lot of content and your business would grow. So, you started creating content here and there but didn’t really see the growth you expected to see and understandably became frustrated.
That’s okay— it’s not your fault. It’s time to escape the blame. There are perhaps two problems going on right now that are holding you back and we’re going to tackle both of those.
First— you might have a problem with mindset. Do you honestly and truly believe that you can grow your business and accomplish incredible things? I hope you believe that, because it’s true. Do you believe you deserve to succeed? It’s time to let go and allow yourself to live the life of your dreams.
Part of that comes from recognizing the second problem— you might have a lack of goals. You need goals in life and in business. When I talk about goals, I’m talking about very specific goals with specific deadlines. When you narrow things down even further, we’re talking about goals related to content and traffic to grow your business.
How much content do you need and by when? What types of content? How many of each type of content?
These are specific numbers you should have in mind as you set off to create more content and drive more traffic so you can grow your business. Up until this point, your goal may have been to “create more content to grow my business.”
The 5X10 method takes things further for you. There’s a goal built right in! Part of your problem is immediately eliminated so you can focus on creation and growth.
You’re going to create 5 different types of content. And you’ll create 10 pieces for each of those 5 types. 10 articles, 10 blog posts, 10 podcast episodes, 10 videos, and 10 social media content pieces.
There isn’t any mystery or trick to this. I’m going to walk you through how to schedule, plan, and execute this so you see the best possible results in the shortest amount of time— no matter whether you only have an hour or so to work on your business each day or you have full workdays available.
How Content Helps Drive Traffic
People need to find you on the web. The problem is, they can’t find you at all if you don’t have a lot of content out there.
Instead of finding you, they’ll find your competitors. They’ll find your competitors’ videos and podcast episodes. They’ll find your competitors’ newsletters and articles. They’ll read your competitors’ blogs and download your competitors’ free reports.
This isn’t news to you. You know that you need to have great content if you want to grow your business and earn more money. But it’s hard to get a lot of content out there. You already work hard and you aren’t sure how you’re going to make this happen.
One of the secrets of successfully driving a lot of traffic is having a lot of content.
One of the biggest secrets of having a lot of content is being consistent and getting into the habit. If you set goals and remain consistent in following through with those goals, you can certainly get a lot of content out there that will help you drive traffic.
You can get a lot of traffic out there very quickly or you can take a slow and steady wins the race approach. Every single little piece of content might only net a small trickle of traffic. It’s the thud effect of ALL of your content that makes the big and true difference.
If you’re only getting a piece of content out here and there, no wonder it can be frustrating. But, that content will add up, and add up some more, and add up some more, until you’re producing a steady stream of content that turns into a waterfall of traffic.
The overall effect of having a lot of content out on the web pointing to your properties, expertise, and products can be huge. Every piece of content you get out there on the web works for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
It’s like having little salespeople and advocates working for you, day and night. It doesn’t matter where you are, whether you’re sleeping or not, or whether you wrote that article a year ago or not, that content is working for you.
So the work you do on this will pay off for many years to come. It will all build up and snowball and lead to great results.
Work on creating a lot of content and it will spread your business all around the web so people can find you, your sites, and your products. Discipline and planning helps you get more content out there so you can get more traffic and all the benefits that come with it.
How Content Helps Increase Perceived Expertise
As you grow your business, you should work to ensure that people see you as an expert.
You want to be the one they turn to when they have questions or when they want to buy a product. You want to become a thought leader in your niche – the one people turn to first.
If you don’t have the content out there, then there’s nothing for people to grab a hold of. They won’t see you as an expert or a thought leader.
The more high quality content you’ve produced and put in front of people, the more likely people are to perceive you as an expert.
Think about people you perceive to be experts on the things you’re interested in, or in the niche you’re personally in for your business.
It’s most likely the case that those you perceive to have the most expertise also tend to have the most content out there. That’s just the way it works.
People latch onto those they are familiar with. In the case of the web, it takes content for people to become familiar with you. That’s how they’ll ‘meet’ you, develop a relationship with you, and learn to trust you.
People turn to those they’re familiar with time and time again—that’s good for your sales.
The more content you get out there, the more people will start to see you as an expert. The more they see you and your content, the more you’ll be at the top of their minds as the expert to turn to and to watch.
This alone can do fantastic things for your business. It’s sort of a wonderful side effect of getting a lot of content out there and driving a lot of traffic with it.
You truly can dominate your niche using this method.
How Content Helps You Increase Your Income
Creating a lot of great content can help you increase your income.
Hopefully, you can see the connection between traffic and income. The more traffic you get to your products, the more money you’re likely to make. Creating content can also help increase your income in ways that are less obvious than that.
Creating a lot of content can help you grow your list, for example. When you focus on growing your email list, you can focus on growing relationships, which improves your conversions and therefore your sales. You’ll get more traffic and more eyes on your offers, which makes you more money overall.
Again, the more content you have out there, the more familiar people will become with you. That means they’ll be much more likely to buy from you.
In addition to having content increase your income for those reasons, having a lot of content out on the web can also increase your passive income. Content can act as sort of salespeople and advocates driving traffic to your products and web properties.
So even if you’re not actively working, you can be actively earning. You don’t have to trade hours for dollars anymore.
You can build true wealth by building up a passive income – and having a lot of content under your brand is the path forward to that goal.
Creating lots of great content can help your business snowball and grow.
Yes, it can be hard getting started from nothing. It can seem daunting if you have no content out there at all. If you just have a little bit of content right now, it can seem impossible to get momentum. Maybe you start and stop and write an article here and there and that’s it.
Well, the past is in the past. Discipline and planning is going to help you get your momentum… and fast. It will allow you to grow your business much more quickly than you’ve experienced before.
You’ll finally have a great, solid goal and a great game plan so you can build from nothing and very quickly snowball your level of content, quality of content, and the results you get from your content.
The Planning Phase
Now, let’s look a little more deeply into the planning phase.
I realize that this typically isn’t the most exciting part of things. People usually want to skip past the planning and get right into the action. The thing of it is, the planning is where the real magic happens. The most successful people plan ahead.
I promise – I’ll make this as painless as possible. I just want you to think about a few things before you get started.
Think about your goals as they relate to business. What exactly do you want to come from this?
This is a very individual question, though most people reading this will have some similar goals in mind.
For example, do you want to grow your list and drive more traffic as a result of getting more content out there? Those are great goals to have.
Maybe you want to say your goal is to grow your list by 500 people by the end of next month. That’s a fantastic, solid goal with a great deadline.
You’ve noticed that I have an endpoint there too—that’s something important to have. Be very specific with your goals and include deadlines with those goals.
What kind of income goals do you have? Maybe you want to earn an extra $500 for your business by the end of next month. That, too, is a great goal to have.
The 5 Different Content Methods
1. Articles
The first content method we’re going to talk about is articles.
I’m starting off with articles because they are perhaps the most basic. They’re what most people think about when they think about creating content for the web.
Articles are so incredibly flexible. You can use articles on your own web properties and on the web properties of others. There are article directories, newsletters, content focused sites, informative sites, review sites, and so many other types of sites that use articles.
Articles tend to serve a specific purpose. In many cases, they serve the purpose of informing. They inform people about something related to your niche—something people want and need to know about. You can write articles that inform people of a certain topic in your niche.
Articles can also serve the purpose of persuasion.
You can persuade people toward a certain opinion, a certain way of thinking, or to take a certain type of action. Since you’re writing for business, you might try to persuade people to take the action of buying a product or signing up for your list.
Articles can teach people step-by-step directions for something. This is a very popular type of article.
Articles can build relationships and establish you as an expert. Articles can make people feel things and help them feel not so alone. You can make people feel sad or happy or any way you want them to feel.
Articles can help people become excited about things. You can tease people with articles and really build up some tension that they’ll want to release… by signing up for your list or buying your product.
Articles can be many different lengths.
I would say articles on the web are typically between 400 words to 2,000 words, on the long end. The length depends on your purpose, your audience, and the platform you intend to post them on.
Articles are a fantastic type of content to focus on and they can help you drive some excellent traffic.
2. Blog Posts
Blog posts are another content method that works great.
These are different from the rest because the main focus is actually to post them on your site— not off.
The great thing about blog posts is that they’re very shareable. Other bloggers can find them and share them— linking to you or quoting you. If you use something like Tumblr, they can reblog you for great exposure.
Blog posts also have the benefit of being SEO magnets.
If you choose your subject well, you just might find that you start to get some nice search engine traffic without even trying.
That typically doesn’t happen with just one blog post or even just a few blog posts, but search engine traffic can really start to increase as you begin to fill your blog up with more and more great, relevant content.
Blog posts tend to be shorter than articles (not always), though there’s quite a bit of overlap when it comes to types of content. Blog posts can be relationship building, informative, how-to, promotional, teasing, and so on.
Your blog can act as a hub for all of your content.
You need somewhere to direct people to, right? Your blog is a nice spot to build your list. Place an opt-in form on the sidebar of your blog as well as under each blog post (in an unobtrusive way).
Direct your other types of content to your blog posts or a squeeze page on your blog post. If you use the all of that energy on building your list and empowering your ‘hub’ (your blog), you can see some great results, rather quickly.
3. Podcasts
Podcasting is one of the content and traffic methods I’m most excited about. 
There are many marketers who say that podcasting is their main form of traffic generation.
Why? There’s something about being able to hear someone’s speaking voice that draws people in, in a different way than written content. There’s also the incredibly powerful iTunes podcasting engine and the fact that podcasts are just downright convenient and a way of life for many people nowadays.
People don’t always have time to sit and read content— though they certainly still do it.
Sometimes, they want to learn and listen while they’re commuting or cleaning. Or maybe they just prefer to listen because that’s how they learn best. Enter the podcast.
You can easily create podcast episodes using free or inexpensive tools— and I think you’ll love every minute of it. I think you’ll see a lot of benefit from as long as you choose great topics and pour your heart into it to connect with your audience.
4. Video
Video is one of those things that’s all-powerful on the web. 
Like podcasts and audio, video is often chosen because people don’t want to read or don’t have time to read. It’s a different and often more interactive way to consume content.
In this case, they get to watch and listen, hitting on two different learning modalities and possibly allowing you to connect with people even more readily.
There’s also the fact that YouTube is a powerhouse, owned by Google. You’ll do well to hitch your wagon to their star— and that’s exactly what we’ll talk about doing with this content method.
Don’t get bogged down by the possible implications of technology— there are some seriously simple ways to create great content, sales, and marketing videos these days.
5. Social Media
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more. There are so many great social sites out there these
days. People hang out on social sites— it’s a way of life.
They wake up and check their Twitter and their Facebook accounts. If you want to be found and recognized in your niche, then you need to be on social media as well.
Social media content isn’t “content” in the way that articles are content. Social media is about sharing more than anything. It’s about relationships and connecting with people. You will spend time creating great social images and posts that will help people and that people will, hopefully, want to share.
You’ll share your excellent content from your other efforts— interlinking your content efforts is always a great strategy.
Your social media content pieces will involve a mixture of content created specifically for social sites, sharing your other content, and connecting with other users and other heavy hitters in your niche.
Conclusion
As you see, content is king, it’s not just a phrase without meaning.
If you want a successful online business, you need content and lots of it. If you don’t have it, you won’t succeed, or at least your success will be very short lived.
Bad or mediocre content won’t help you, you have to make good content, if you don’t, your competitors will “steal” your business.
Start now, stop chasing “shiny objects” and make some great content instead.
