I’m always going on about the importance of great content. I don’t apologize for that. You can have ad units that are perfectly optimized, blended completely into your site and packed with high-paying ads. But if your content’s garbage, no one’s going to click on them because no one’s going to come to your site.
I meet so many people who dream of getting rich with AdSense but never give a thought for building a content-rich site.
The content on your Web pages is your bread-and-butter. Producing content is what you, as a publisher, do. AdSense is just the method of turning that content into cash.
Your content has to look professional and provide trustworthy information and interesting opinions. There are a number of basic steps that you can take to make sure that your site looks the part.
You can start with spellchecking.
Sounds obvious, right? And yet so many people write directly onto their blogs or their sites without bothering to check for typos. It’s not the end of the world -- unless you need a code book to figure out what your words are supposed to be -- but it makes you look sloppy and amateur. Create that kind of bad impression and users are much less likely to trust what you’ve said or to come back.
Write your entries in Word, keep the automatic spellchecker on and paste what you’ve written online. You’ll put across the right message right from the start.
The next thing you can do is to speak from the heart. That’s especially important for bloggers.
Users visit blogs to find out what experts think about various topics. If you’re musician, they’ll want to know what you think about the recent music awards. If you’re a techie, they’ll want to know what insiders are saying about Vista. If you’re a food junkie, they’ll want to know what you think of pumpkin pie.
You’ve got opinions about the things you care about so don’t hold back. Let ‘er rip! Say exactly what’s on your mind. The people who agree with you will stop by to get ammunition for their own arguments... and the people who disagree with you will stop by to comment. Either way, you get a vibrant site and lots of clicks.
And finally, don’t be afraid to toss in multimedia. You’ll need text to trigger the right ads but tossing in some video or pictures is such an easy way to liven up your site it’s a waste not to do it. Go wild. Entertain your readers! You’ll get paid for it.
It's Del.icio.us!
Furl It!
November 25, 2006 10:14 AM
Hi Joel,
Thanks for your emails Joel I think they are very meaty.Regards Janice.
November 25, 2006 02:16 PM
Joel, doesn't flash and stuff like that ruin your chances for total optimization...or should I use that stuff on pages that I've not optimized?
Brad
November 28, 2006 02:59 PM
How does one "paste" Word copy online? Where online? In your own site? All this is still techno-talk to me. The content part makes perfect sense and I wouldn't want to provide a site with lame content. But it's the techie stuff ....