If you’re a digital entrepreneur, you know the importance of good content. You also know the difficulties of creating said content. In this article, we’re looking at a popular alternative to creating your own content – buying it. That’s right, many web publishing entrepreneurs purchase content to populate their sites. This saves them time, and it can ensure the perfect content to achieve their goals.
In this article, we’re examining how you can buy the perfect content for your site. But before you can even think about buying content, you have to know what you’re looking for. So we’ll start by examining how to define and measure the perfect content for your site.
Before you can understand how to purchase the best content for your site, you need to know how to measure good content. There are many types of content out there, and it won’t all be a good fit with your site and with your business goals.
Effective web content will change depending on the type of web business you are running. It could be text, videos, pictures, guides, etc. The most important part of effective web content is that it is designed to meet a goal.
How do I measure good content?
Considering the above information, we can conclude that you shouldn’t start buying content without understanding what your goals are, and without knowing which content actually achieves these goals.
Therefore, before you can start to purchase content, you need to have an effective understanding of the type of content you need. You need to understand your business’s goals, your target audience, and the competitive environment. Let’s briefly examine these topics.
Goals
Any website (or any business in general) needs to be directed by clear, measured goals. Before you can even think about creating or purchasing content for your website, you need to know what your content goals are. For a web business, content goals can vary quite considerably depending on the space you are pursuing.
Content is typically (but not exclusively) designed for one of three purposes:
- to sell something
- to increase ad revenue
- to grow a community
For example, an Amazon Affiliate website will want to create content that attracts their target consumers from Google, and then motivates them to purchase certain products, thus increasing affiliate commission.
You need to know what your business’s content goals are, so that you can go about purchasing the right type of content to meet your goals. For more reading on your content goals checkout this article by the content marketing institute.
Know your target market
Your content goals can’t effectively be met without a thorough understanding of your target market. This knowledge goes hand in hand with your business’s goals, and is a crucial piece of understanding to help you meet those goals.
You need to develop a buyer persona which tells you where your target customers are and how you can reach them. This way, you can develop content that will actually reach them, and will also appeal to their motivations.
Understand the market
Finally, you need to have an effective understanding of the competitive market. Know who your competitors are, know what they are doing, and know how they find success. This knowledge lets you know where you can gain a competitive advantage, or which areas are already oversaturated.
What makes good content?
So, we’ve looked at what makes good web content, and we’ve examined the factors you need to consider for your business. The bottom line is that you need to examine these factors together. Good content meets your goals by appeasing your target market, and appealing to their motivations to hook them into consuming your content. Once the consumers discover your content, it will contain a value proposition to help them take the desired action.
All this may seem like a lot of work, but you’ve effectively created a template for understanding your business, your business environment, and what to look for when purchasing good content. Now, you can start to consider purchasing quality content that meets these goals.
Before we move on, we need to mention another important step that will be crucial to creating (or purchasing) effective content for your website – SEO.
Nowadays, the content marketing space is extremely competitive. Effective content needs to be created with SEO in mind. SEO means Search Engine Optimization, which is a fancy way of saying that you want your content to show up on Google. Here is a great primer on SEO and a guide for keyword research.
Optimizing your content for SEO is pretty much a necessary step for success at this point. Much of this is simply writing content that is relevant and informative for your target audience. But it also includes complex techniques such as adding keywords to an article, link-building, adding images and video, and more.
Of course, this is a simplified explanation of Search Engine Optimization. There have been entire articles and books written on this topic. Just know that any successful content should be optimized for SEO. Luckily, any reputable content provider will consider SEO in the content they create for you.
Purchasing content for your website
So far, we’ve examined how to evaluate the perfect content for your web business. The reason we spent so long on this topic is because you can’t purchase effective web content if you don’t have a solid understanding of these topics. This base knowledge is necessary so that you can work with a content provider to create the ideal content for meeting your needs.
In this section, we’re going to show you the best ways you can purchase content for your website. We’ll start with how you can do it. Then, we’ll tell you what to look for, and also give a brief explanation of the types of content providers to consider.
Why should I purchase content?
You have a great understanding of what your business does, and you also know the right type of content for meeting your business’s goals. So why wouldn’t you just create the content yourself? It’s a good question, and the best answer is that creating content is time consuming.
The online marketing space is extremely competitive, and it takes a lot of content to stand out. You simply won’t be able to create this level of content on your own, even if you have fantastic content creation skills. This is the primary reason that many web entrepreneurs supplement their content creation with additional purchased content.
It all boils down to return on investment. If your purchased content is generating more revenue than you are paying for it, then your business will grow. Once again, this is why you need to know the type of content that will help your business succeed.
Case study example – Gaurav Shir purchased a site that was making $70/month from MotionInvest.com and then added 500 articles of content… it is now making $6,000/month! You can listen to an interview with him here.
How can I buy content for my website?
So, you’re convinced of the appeals of purchasing content for your website. Where do you start? There’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news is that you have many options to choose from. The bad news is that you have many options to choose from. A quick Google search will return many companies which advertise the best content creation/optimization services, so separating the good from the bad can be a daunting task.
Here’s what you should look for to choose the best content service for your website.
What to look for in a content service
Understanding of your goals: hiring a content service isn’t just about hiring someone to create content; it’s about hiring someone who will take the time to understand your business’s goals. This is the only way they will create the right type of content to help you succeed.
This is why we wrote so much above about understanding your goals. You need to know this so that you can communicate it to anyone you work with. There’s an onus on you to ensure that you outsource your tasks properly, and this means effective communication at all stages of the process.
Well written/readable: this one almost goes without saying. Any reputable content service will create content that effectively communicates its main message. For example, if you’re hiring someone to create written content, they need to create content that is well-organized, flows well, utilizes proper spelling and grammar, etc.
Look for a content provider that actually specializes in creating a certain type of content – as opposed to a “jack of all trades”. A company that does press releases may not be as good as a specialized SEO content provider.
SEO optimization: as mentioned above, content needs to match the search intent of your target customers. Therefore, it goes without saying that any content service should provide SEO optimization as part of their base offering.
SEO techniques are necessary for success in this area, and you want a company that stays up to date with current trends, and knows how to optimize content so that it’s prominently displayed on a search engine results page.
Options for purchasing content
Now that we’ve examined what to look for in a content service, let’s take a closer look at your options. Generally, there are a few ways that you can purchase content for your business.
Content writing agencies provide end-to-end solutions
First of all, we have the option that we’ve touched upon a few times in this article. Full-fledged content creation services do exactly as their name implies. They’re companies that work with you to create content that achieves your business’s goals. They typically charge on a “per project” basis, with quantity discounts depending on the amount of content you purchase.
These services can be quite good, but there’s also a lot of variability. Be sure to choose a service that has a good reputation. Choose a company with a history of satisfied customers, and also a company that specializes in the type of content you are trying to create.
Some of these agencies, such as ContentRefined.com, focus on providing a complete end-to-end solution from content strategy through to publishing.
Hiring writers onto your team
The main alternative to outsourcing content would be to hire staff (or contract) writers to create content for you. This is a much more feasible option for a larger business that has the workload to handle a permanent writing staff. It might be a better option if you know that your content needs will be consistent. A great place to do this is UpWork.com.
Hiring your own writers/content creators will save you money in the long run if you have the workload to justify it. It’s also an opportunity to hire someone who you can teach your business’s goals and content requirements, so that you don’t have to repeat yourself each time you outsource content.
Basically, hiring writers is a higher upfront cost and a bigger commitment, but it can save you money in the long run, and you can potentially create content that is better in-line with your goals. Of course, you also need to be sure you hire the right people.
Using content platforms
There are some solutions that are a blend between hiring writers/services and freelancers where they are a specialized platform to facilitate the connection between writers and publishers. WriterAccess is a well known platform that offers this service.
Summary
The bottom line is that purchasing content is an excellent opportunity for your business, but you need to be sure that you do it properly. Don’t think of purchasing content as an opportunity to eliminate your content creation workload. Think of it as a way to work with someone to create the content that you need. You are still ultimately in charge of what is featured on your website, and you are still in control of whether that content meets your goals.
This is why we repeatedly stressed the importance of outlining your goals and understanding your target market before undertaking this task. We’ve given you a full template for creating the content that will help your business succeed. As long as you take the time to evaluate each part of the process, we are confident that purchasing content can become a sustainable part of your business model.
Good story, Jon. One of the hardest things is to hold on to good writers after training them.