In the mid 1990’s –the ‘early days’ of the internet so to speak - adding content to your site was about the best way market your site. But in 2000, this ‘content bubble’ burst. Other exciting profit models like e.g. banner ads came into fashion and were the way to go.

Now, five years later, this has all changed back into the advantage of content marketing. Especially since the arrival of Google Adsense, it’s become fashionable and most importantly profitable again to build content rich websites.

Okay, then the big question becomes: how do I get this content?

There are several options to do this. Writing material yourself is probably the best solution BUT …

“But wait a minute, I don’t have time to site back and write so much; this will take me weeks, no even months! And I’m already a very busy person right now!”

There are a few possibilities to overcome this problem. I believe the second best option is to join a membership site that offers content you can use and/or public domain material for a specified membership fee.

You can either publish the material right away ‘as is’, or alter and ‘personalize’ to your needs. Now, before you start complaining about the fee, still consider this:

There are indeed also some sites out there that offer content for free. “Wow , that’s great!” Yes indeed, at first sight, this seems like the perfect solution: Problem solved and not paid a dime! It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Well, unfortunately, that’s because it is: you can be sure that you will not be the only one who has downloaded this content. There will be about tens of thousands other ambitious website owners that want to make it online, who also enthusiastically accepted this ‘irresistible offer’. That’s quite a lot of competition. Furthermore, you can only use this material if you also put the author’s resource box, with a link to his website off course. In other words: instead of your own, you are in fact practically promoting this guy’s website… Or, as the old axiom goes, “You get what you pay for.” Not only are you competing against hordes of other people, but you’re also using a product that is certainly NOT unique or original. Don’t think that th!

e search engines will rewards you for this. Furthermore, the author is practically stealing your traffic through the resource box link. Do I need to say that all this doesn’t add to the perceived value of the product that you are trying to sell?

Besides the fact that the content that you receive, clearly is of better quality, the sheer fact that you are working with a membership site also means that the chances of success are much higher (as opposed to trying to compete with an overrun market). The reason of this lies within the way most of these membership sites are set up. Only a select number of individuals are accepted to join and reap the benefits of the offers through the membership. That’s the best way they can secure a market edge for their members.

Since the number of subscribers to the membership is limited and because not all those subscribers will be using the material for the same objectives, you can rest assured that you don’t have to compete with the rest of the world.

Apart from that, it is amazing but true that only a few of these members actually really use the material that is offered to them. It always surprises me how many people never do anything at all with the content to which they have access.

The big advantage of such membership sites is that normally you have the guarantee that you can start using or publishing the material right away. It means that the producer has either purchased the rights to the material or has taken care of all the research to verify that the work indeed belongs to the public domain and that you can therefore use it without copyright restrictions or other problems. Don’t take this lightly, it means you don’t have to worry about:

- Researching the copyright
- Scanning the material
- Editing it to get it ready
- Writing a sales letter and other marketing materials
- Locating target markets and optimizing your site

This article was posted on December 12, 2005

About The Author

Lieven Van de Vel is an online marketer who is sick of all the B.S. and other "get rich quick" programs on the internet today. Instead, we focus on fair, yet effective ways to promote your site. Check it out at www.youneedmorecontent.com.