April 05 03 SBC Small Business Newsletter

April 5, 2003

Table of Contents

Staff Article - CONSIDERING THE PAID CONTENT MARKET
Guest Article - 10 QUICK WAYS TO PROMOTE YOUR WEBSITE
Parting Comments

Unsubscribe Information

Welcome

Thank you for subscribing to the Peak Small Business Newsletter!

If you prefer to receive the html version, let us know by emailing us at:
mailto:cary@peakconsultinginc.com?subject=HTML

You can also view it online at:

http://www.peakconsultinginc.com/newsletters/sbnl_apr0503.htm

Quote of the Week

Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.

- Sigmund Freud

Administration

INTERESTED IN THE HOME BUSINESS NEWSLETTER?

If you're interested in subscribing or switching, a simple blank email will do, as follows:

mailto:s2home@peakconsultinginc.com - to switch to the home
business version and unsubscribe from the small business version.

mailto:both@peakconsultinginc.com - to receive both versions of
the newsletter.

Featured Resource

RenameStar 1.11

This is a very useful utility that allows you to rename multiple related files all at one time. It's very user friendly, flexible and fr^e. Take a look at the site to see possible ways this neat tool could be of use.

http://home.earthlink.net/~tm120176050/multfile.html

Staff Article

CONSIDERING THE PAID CONTENT MARKET
by: Cary Christian

I've talked to you a lot about using content on your site to obtain higher search engine rankings, make your site more interesting to your visitors, sell better by emphasizing the benefits of your products and establish your company as an expert in your field. (See last week's article, for example). I firmly believe this tactic is extremely important to your success online.

But what if you have some really juicy, hard to find information or have achieved a level of expertise in your field that allows you to consistently generate content that cannot be found elsewhere? You think maybe you should be paid for it?

Jupiter Research forecasts the paid information market to be in excess of $2 billion this year, and that it will grow by 20 percent annually to $5.4 billion by 2007. That's a sizable market and one that you should not ignore.

Let's explore a few ideas you could use to penetrate this market.

WHAT MAKES FOR GOOD PAID CONTENT?

You can look to existing sites that offer paid content to see examples of the types of content people are paying for. Here are two examples at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Terry Dean runs a membership site called NetBreakThroughs.com. Terry is a well-known and highly respected Internet marketer and, as a member of his site, you have access to his detailed testing of different marketing mediums online. He tells you specifically what works and what does not, and gives you solid statistics to back it up. His stature in the marketing community and his track record drive the success of this site.

There are many other membership sites like Terry's, most run by individuals whose accomplishments are as impressive as his. There are similar sites that are run successfully by less well-known marketers that seem to do well as long as original and effective content is provided.

There are also much more elaborate and technical sites such as Lexis-Nexis that provides high-end research capabilities for anyone desiring information on legal, taxation and business matters.

If you were performing legal research, for example, you could find the information you need in a fraction of the time it would take you using free sites. That is, if you could find what you need on the free sites at all.

The key to success in a paid content site is offering content that is not available fr^e elsewhere or being able to accumulate a vast number of resources in one place that would require many hours of laborious research and visits to hundreds of separate sites to obtain.

Research your own industry to see what type of informational resources are missing. If you were a consumer and user of your products, what types of related resources would you be willing to pay for?

Want to make it a little easier? Assuming you have lots of good free content on your site, take a look at your web logs. Find the section on "keywords" to see what terms people are using when they find your site. Then do some searches of your own on those terms to see what's out there. I have quite a few product ideas I'm working on right now that I found in this manner.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ORIGINAL CONTENT

To the extent you have knowledge, or access to knowledge, that is not available for fr^e online, you have an excellent opportunity to charge for that knowledge. The next step is determining what form your information to be sold will take.

If you believe you could continually generate new content for an indefinite period of time, then a paid membership site is an attractive option. With such a site, you must be able to constantly add new, original and useful content or you will begin losing members as quickly as you can add them. The same is true for a paid ezine.

If you do not feel you could keep up with this process of continually adding new content, then you are better off packaging the information as a special report, white paper or ebook of some kind that you will sell once. If the subject matter is sufficiently broad enough, you might be able to create a series out of it. Break up your information into categories and make a separate information product for each type of content you want to sell. This is a lot easier than creating a membership site or attempting to create a paid ezine.

COMPILATION CONTENT

Have you ever been searching for information online only to get millions of returns to your search string? Worse still, you find that most of the search results you investigate provide the same information as the last in a slightly different format.

A search like this can take hours of your time to piece together the complete picture. That's where a compilation site comes in. If your business is in an industry where the information is out there but needs to be compiled and organized, then you should consider being the one to compile and organize first. Depending on the industry and how frequently people use and reuse these sources of information, you could either create a member site or package the information as research products to be sold.

COORDINATION WITH YOUR REGULAR CONTENT

If you decide to provide paid content, do not get rid of the fr^e content on your site. The fr^e content continues to attract visitors because of your enhanced search engine positioning and can also serve as a terrific sales tool for your paid content products.

For example, if you have an article on your site that deals with selecting an accounting software package, you might mention at the end of the article that you also have an ebook for sale that goes into the subject in much more detail and offers insider tips on how to get the best deals. Now your fr^e content is working double time for you.

BUT WHAT IF I DON'T HAVE SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE?

Get it. One step at time. Think about your industry. Ask questions you think consumers might have about your products. Search your logs. Research these questions. Find one that you cannot get a decent answer for online. Develop the solution. Package it and sell it. Then repeat. Over time you will not only find yourself becoming a real expert in your industry but you will have developed an impressive array of products to sell along the way.

Copyright (c) 2003

Guest Article

10 QUICK WAYS TO PROMOTE YOUR WEBSITE
By Merle http://MCPromotionsPress.com

Think fast! If I asked you to quickly name ten things you could do to promote your website, what would you say? If you're like most online entrepreneurs thinking off the top of your head, you wouldn't make it past two or three. Allow me to help; here are ten quickie tips to get the word out on your site.

1) Publish an Ezine: The only way to collect email addresses of your website visitors and build your own opt-in list is with your own ezine. If you're not publishing, I strongly suggest you start and add a sign up box in the upper right hand corner of every page in your site. To learn more about ezines, visit http://www.EzineUniversity.com

2) Use P.P.C: That's "Pay Per Click," for all you newbies out there. If you're not using Google and Overture you need to open an account today. By bidding into the top three positions you'll enjoy mass exposure on many of the other top search engines like Yahoo.

To keep costs down, use two and three word phrases and try to stay away from the most popular ones. http://www.Wordtracker.com
can help.

To learn more about pay per clicks go to: http://PayPerClickSearchEngines.com

3) Swap Links: You've heard it before but it bears repeating: find other related sites and swap links with them. Not only
will it give you a slight boost with the search engines, but it will also enhance your site for your guests by giving them more
related resources to explore.

Check out http://LinkPartners.com

4) Buy Ezine Ads: Ezine Advertising is popular because it works. Look for top spots and solo ads for best response rates. Check out: http://www.Lifestylespub.com
http://tinyurl.com/4obh

5) Swap Ezine Ads: If you publish an ezine, and you should, find other publishers to swap ads with for some free advertising.
Make sure these publications appeal to your target market.

Take a look at: http://www.SwapEzineAds.com

6) Discussion Boards: Participating in online discussion boards and posting helpful resources with a good signature line is a great way to increase your traffic. My personal favorite is
http://ablake.net/forum/

7) Write Articles: Write short articles such as this one and distribute them to article lists and other ezine publishers for possible inclusion in their ezines. Try to keep them short under 500 words.

Check out: http://www.Family-Content.com
http://ktamarketng.com/article-submission.html

8) Press Releases: Try to come up with a news angle for your site and compose a press release and submit it to the media. If just one person picks up your story you can get a large amount
of traffic.

Check out:
http://tinyurl.com/4obb

9) Promotional Products: Have pens, pencils, notepads and other promotional items printed up with your url and give them away.
Try http://Epromos.com

Get URL plates for your car at:
http://tinyurl.com/4obg

10) Affiliate Program: If you sell a product consider starting your own affiliate program where others sell for you and you pay them a commission. Check out:

http://www.clickbank.com/build.html
http://www.clixgalore.com

Contrary to popular belief, if you build it they will *not come* -- at least, not without promotional effort on your end. Do it daily and before long you'll see an upswing in your traffic and hopefully a little more cash in your pocket.

**********************************************
Merle http://www.EzineAdAuction.com
"Where some of the BEST Deals in Ezine Advertising are Made"
Buy & Sell Ezine Ads in a live auction setting!
Publishers sell off your excess inventory and Buyers pick up some Fantastic bargains. Free E-book on how to write "glowing" ezine ads.....Download Now at
http://www.ezineadauction.com/ebooks/greatezineads.pdf

Parting Comments

We hope you have enjoyed this issue of the Peak Small Business Newsletter and found it useful. Please visit our website at http://www.peakconsultinginc.com to check out all the resources we provide.

If you need to contact us, please use the following link:

Support - support@peakconsultinginc.com

To suggest content or ideas for articles, click this link to send an email.

Unsubscribe Information

You are receiving this newsletter because you requested it on our website or through an advertising link on the Internet. If you want to cancel your subscription to this newsletter, simply click the following link - unsubscribe@peakconsultinginc.com