What Real Internet Marketing Looks Like

How To Promote and Generate Content For Authority Sites

When creating this blog, I had originally wanted to share how I’m making money using my fingers, mind and an internet connection. Since then, whenever I come up with or come across a great idea, (in this case the latter) I am compelled to share it with all of you.

This idea is simply so mind-blowing that I couldn’t keep quiet about it. Actually, I had originally intended to email it to many of you then thought I’d best just share this with the world. The truth is, not many of you will take advantage of this tactic, which is fine, it isn’t for every type of website or business model.

And besides, I could use less competition. =)

When it comes to creating a website, one of the main problems you’ll face is creating that Google link-love-getting, link-juice-dripping, traffic-vortex-generating content. “Content is King.”

Yes, that’s taken from Alexander Krulik, who has the tagline, If content is king, who wants to be content’s boss? This is from his Magic Article Rewriter and the article submitter, as well as Magic Submitter, which I’d say is responsible for my recent #1 ranking in Google. Yes, those are shameless affiliate links. Buy them now, thank me later. End shameless plug.

The trick with creating content is that most of us have been so inundated with mass-production approaches to internet marketing that our content has lost its voice, mood and its soul.

But let’s say that you had killer content because you hired me (I’m actually a humble guy at dinner parties), or you have just created your own top-notch content, now what?

Well, whether you’re creating content for your website proper, or creating content and planning a strategy for your backlinks and site promotion, you’ll have to take your post-Industrial-Revolution, post-Adam-Smith, mass-production mindset and shoot it, skin it, tan it and sell the pelts: mass production just won’t do in every case.

In anticipation to your objections being raised, I want to mention that mass production will work in many cases, especially in creating niche sites with really non-competitive terms.

What I’m talking about is creating a quality authority site, or having a marketing strategy in place to promote a competitive site.

Another caveat: you know that I’m a fan of spinning articles (I use my own, not yours), I love massive production (not “mass production” but “massive production”), but I do not like the way the creative writing process or the quality of the content has suffered a ginormous Atomic Drop Kick to the gonads.

(The term “Atomic Drop Kick” is taken from World Wrestling Federation or WWF, and Wheel of Fortune’s “Before & After” puzzle category. See, there is an “atomic drop” and…oh, nevermind.)

When it comes to creating web content, and promoting a website, many are flat-out chaotic in their approach. They’ll start out with a blog, then add a Twitter account, Digg, article marketing, Facebook fan page, LinkedIn…and the beat goes on.

What most internet marketers do not do is actually market their site or product, and they do not begin with anything that nearly approaches an achievable, precise set of goals. The end result, I’m afraid, is that most of us are leaving thousands of dollars (or ruples, or pesos, or yen, or lettuce, or coin…or leads) on the table!

Check this: I do not have an eBook to sell you. This is just a great idea I came across, and due to the circumstances of coming across it, I can’t divulge from where or who. [Translation: I'm not this smart, folks, but I do know a great idea when I see it!]

Here’s a game-changing plan, at least the way I see it, and let me say again: this isn’t for every site (definitely not for micro-sites that you’ll throw up 1-5 pages of content on and then move along, Cassidy). This plan is a bit more involved, and should be used for competitive niches and terms, and for branded sites or authority sites.

What Real Internet Marketing Looks Like

==> Not My Idea! <==

This is a well-known system in marketing, it's called the ROAD model of marketing. It can be used for both researching a website and generating content, but in general is a great way to promote your sites.

ROAD Stands For:

Research – Study your target audience: what do they spend? What are their needs? Where do they congregate online? What sort of products or services are important to them? How do they like to be approached and spoken to (“voice”)?
Objectives – All objectives are specific to the target audience per your research.
Actions – Game-changer moment: actually plan a strategy that makes sense for this audience. For example, if you have a website that is geared towards the elderly, then you don’t need to peddle birth control…<== stupid analogy
Devices – What are the best ways, nuts-and-bolts and brass tacks and all that, to actually implement the plan? Is your audience on Facebook? If so, on what fan pages? Is your audience more of a text-based community, or flash-based community? Will a text-based approach or video and image-based approach work best?

Moving from that onto actual implementation, you would then need to test out your plan. Does one landing page work better than another in an A-B split test? Does the Facebook ad convert better than the Google AdWords ad?

These are just some random thoughts, but the point is that testing a theory to see if the CTR and close ratio can be buttoned up if you tweak this versus that approach is, honestly, where I think a lot of the cookie-cutter mentality just takes a .38 to our kneecaps.

(If I sound violent, thank Marvel and DC Comics…and Yosemite Sam.)

The end goal would be to refine this process and approach, to test it and then to perfect it (within reason), so you could use the research and approach time and again. This is real-world internet marketing, on a grand scale.

And I know many of you won’t do it because this takes hard work. “Work smarter, not harder” — that’s great, I’m all for it, but I’m talking game-changing tactics for a big-swing-for-the-fences type of niche or authority site, where the stakes are higher, the competition’s armed with blackhats and fat cats, and where success can be measured with zeroes before the decimal.

Let’s wrap this up, shall we? What does all of this mean for you? Well, if you’re into a smaller type of site, optimized for some AdSense clicks, then you can blithely ignore me.

However, I’m committed to finding a bigger bat to swing – and this is all theory right now, so bear with me – so I think I’ll have to try this out on some of the domains I’ve purchased. There is one in particular where I could make $90 up to $1500/sale…

And that’s where some real rubber meeting the road research is going to have to be done on my part. If I want to close one of those $1500 sales a month (at least!), I’ll need to really dig beyond doing the 30 minute research (rewriting Wikipedia – not that I’ve done that…more than once…oh, child, please! Like you haven’t! Look, I’m not doing that again…and admitting it…). I’m going to have to get to the nitty-gritty.

Or: at least ask my affiliate manager what they’ve found in their research of their target market. (Bingo!)

End the public service announcement from freelance writer professional me. Happy marketing (on those big mama sites).