We need to define the purpose of our website before we can answer this question. Since we are in the Affiliate Marketing business, I broke down the main objectives of an Affiliate Marketing website in the diagram below:
An Affiliate Marketing website has Blog Posts that are Indexed and Ranked by Google and the other search engines. The diagram above shows the steps that the website needs to go through to make a sale. I am going to repeat what the diagram says just to drive it home.
The website, or more specifically the Blog Posts in it need to attract the attention of real people in your target market first. Once you have their attention, there is no guarantee they will stay on your website. Hence, your Blog Post has to hold their attention.
You will need time for your Blog Post to uncover a pressing need they have.
It’s now time to satisfy their need. If you do that really well, guess what comes next?
The SALE. Your visitor is about to become your customer by clicking your affiliate link and making a purchase on your Affiliate company’s website store. And you get a commission check!
Let’s discuss each of these steps in detail to establish how to create good content for a website. Your website!
Attract Attention
Here is where the rank of your website and Blog Post are important. There is a process one needs to go through to get ranked high. The Keyword plays one of the roles in getting ranked high. In time this will generate traffic to your post and give yourself a fighting chance to succeed in this business.
You need to imagine you are a visitor to your website from your target market. When you read your keyword, does it jump out and grab your attention? Remember, you mast look at it from the perspective of your target market. To do that effectively you must learn all about the needs, wants and desires of the people who visit your website.
No matter how good your article is, if your KEYWORD doesn’t grab their attention, your article will be in vain.
That is why you MUST be so familiar with your customers needs, wants and desires to come up with the right words. Ask yourself after you pick a keyword, if you came across it in the title of an article, would you carry on to read more?
Be honest. If you wouldn’t then create a different keyword. A keyword is not necessarily one word, but a phrase.
Hold Attention
Once your visitor’s attention is grabbed by your keyword, the next step is to keep them reading your article. The first sentence or two in your Blog Post is what will hold their attention sufficiently to read on.
What do you do? You must write engaging copy. They have a need, wants and desires that you know can be satisfied by your product. But they do not know that yet. People like stories. So write just like you are telling a story to a friend.
Uncover A Need
As they read along you take them through a journey that uncovers their need, wants and desires. Until this moment, this may not have been at the forefront of their minds. It is your responsibility to strip the obstacles and lay bare what they really want.
It may sound counter-intuitive, but not everyone is clear what they really want. They may have a rough idea. It is your job to use the words in your article to help them realize they have a problem. And that it is in their interest to understand the nature of their problem so that they can find an effective solution.
Satisfy A Need
Have you noticed that you are holding your visitor by the hand, metaphorically speaking, and taking them on a journey? You are using your article to help them not only to uncover their problem, but also to make sure the solution is staring them in the face.
Your solution satisfies a need that is so compelling they have to take action. Here is where many fall short as they forget to ask them to take that next step. You got to ask them to take action.
In our business this is made so easy by showing them where to click to go to the company’s online store. There they can conclude this process in going through the purchase procedure.
At this point you are out of the loop. They are on familiar ground, especially if the store is Amazon. While browsing the Amazon store they may see other related or even unrelated items they want to purchase. If they add these to their shopping cart and buy, you will get paid a commission for those items too.
Isn’t that insane?
How Do You Actually Write Compelling Content?
The answer is really simple. Put yourself in your potential customer’s shoes as you are writing your article. As you write each sentence ask yourself the following question:
What FEELINGS will your customer get when reading your article? People use emotions to make decisions. Hence, you have to write in a way that will trigger their emotions to feel that you are helping them make a great decision.
Writing compelling copy is as much an art as a science. It takes time to perfect this process. Expect to make mistakes. Those who are experts now had to start somewhere and probably made mistakes too. Because of them you can reduce the time of your learning curve. I will provide links to articles written by others on writing great content below.
Content Categories
There are several categories of content a Blog Post can focus on. So let’s address a few key ones:
Reviews
You do not need to own a product to present a compelling review. Jerry Huang, a graduate of Wealthy Affiliate shows us how he does it and teaches us his process in this Blog on Reviews he wrote there.
Providing Valuable Information
Although the Keyword is great for attracting attention, it doesn’t have to be the focus of one’s Blog when giving out valuable information in written form. Once again, another long time member of Wealthy Affiliate tells us how to pass on valuable information simply.
Writing Sales Copy
A Blog can also be nothing more than a sales copy. There is a place for doing that in Affiliate Marketing. DMcCalister showed us how he learned to write winning sales copy using three easy steps.
How To Improve Your Writing Skills To Wow Your Readers
Laura Kinghorn, a relatively new member on Wealthy Affiliate wrote a very helpful Blog on how to improve your writing skills to WOW your readers.
You can go online and come across many ways to write great content. However, they all get back to the basic principles I detailed in the start of this Blog. We all have different styles, and we need to be ourselves in writing our Blogs. I hope these examples of others will help you to develop your unique style to write great content.
Concluding Thoughts
All these authors, including myself are members of Wealthy Affiliate. This is a company that has been helping Affiliate Marketers to excel over the past 14 years. You can learn more about the incredible Wealthy Affiliate Training Platform in this article I wrote, The Best Training In Affiliate Marketing That Turns Beginners Into Pros!
I invite you to join our community and learn how to do Affiliate Marketing the correct and winning way. You will find links on how to sign up for free in the article above.
In the meantime, I wish you all the success in the world in learning how to create good content for a website. Your website off course!
Cheers!
Note: (This post may affiliate links, which means that if you click on a link to the Merchant’s site and purchase something I may earn a commission.The price you pay will be the same if you went to the Merchant’s site directly.)
Previously, I thought that learning how to write good sales copy is only for marketers who want to create sales pages or landing pages, and that bloggers should not prioritize that field of expertise. I thought that bloggers should be contented in just writing stories, and that would be enough. But later, as a blogger, I realized that we also need to learn good copy writing. That’s why I agree with you here when you mentioned about learning copy writing.
Aside from Wealthy Affiliate, what else do you recommend wherein people like me can learn more about copy writing?
Gomer, thanks so much for your helpful comments. I once was a member of a company called My Lead Systems Pro. They have a great course on Copywriting Mastery. It consists of several videos as well as great notes in PDF format. You could check into them.
I wrote a review about MLSP you many want to check out.
I wish you much success in your online business.
Edwin
Hi Edwin,
I agree with the importance of keywords that you mentioned in this article. Is there an article more specific about keywords search in your blog too? Can’t wait to read more on this topic.
Also for the platform that you mentioned in the last few parts of this article called “Wealthy Affiliate”, it looks not bad and fun. As far as I know, many affiliate programs turn out to be scams that just makes profits by the membership of new subscribers. Do you also have a detailed article about Wealthy Affiliate?
Love to read more in your blog soon,
Matt
Hi Matt,
I have not written a blog on Keywords. That sounds like a great idea that I will follow up on. I am creating a series of tutorial like blogs that I will group together under one Menu at the top.
In my Conclusion I placed a link to my Blog Post on providing Wealthy Affiliate details. Here it is again:
The Best Training In Affiliate Marketing That Turns Beginners Into Pros
Check it our and let me know what you think.
Cheers.
Edwin
Indeed a website has only seconds to capture the readers attention which means our site should be professionally designed, attractive and engaging, and be easy to navigate in order to quickly gain the visitors’ attention and interest. Good use of images is important as well as. I love the fact that you have laid all the step to follow and I believe I’m going to achieve massive success in creating a good content on my website. Thanks
Thanks for your supportive comments. I love your attitude of achieving success in a big way. You will do it.
Edwin
This is a very well explained article on making great content using an effective keyword. As an affiliate marketer, making sales is all about a good article that can benefit the readers. If we can help them with great suggestions, give helpful answers to their queries, and build rapport, then it’s more likely that we grab their attention to at least look at what we’re offering which is the solution to what they need.
It’s really hard to put a valuable article together that’s why getting a good keyword is a start. It’s always a recommended move to write as if we’re talking to them like a friend. It’s important that trust is built between an affiliate marketer and the reader. Honesty is one value that should always show in a writing content. Your article is one good example. It’s full of information that is valuable to any aspiring blogger. Thanks for sharing!
Many thanks for your encouraging comments. I liked how you validated my message by makoing some great suggestions of your own. Like writing as if you are chatting to a friend.
I wish you much success in your online business.
Edwin
This is a very interesting review I must say. It has not just explained all the process and guides required to create good contents but has also exemplified this through this post.
I have fully been attended to and my thirst to know more about creating content has been satisfied. This is a great post and ultimate guidelines with step to step guides, strategies and stages that if followed will help achieve the visualized result we all want to actualize.
Wily,
Thanks so much for your great response. Glad you found it helpful. I wish you much success in your writing.
Edwin
Good content writing is like a ladder to get to the hearts of our audience. Quality content will drive traffic to our website and it will make them become loyal visitors when they find what they are looking for.
I agreed with the chat inside this review. It is just the truth. We need to create and attract attention. When that is done, we need to find a way to hold them and satisfy their needs. This is how to pull through a successful lane in any blogging or affiliate marketing website. I was able to learn a lot of tips inside this review. This article will go a long way in helping beginners secure a place in their writing career as a digital/affiliate marketer or bloggers.
Hi Stella,
I appreciate your validation of my article very much. Thank you so much.
Edwin
To create a good content for a website and get viewers attention is an art in my honest opinion. This is because I came across this helpful post and got a better idea to tackle this obstacle. I also went through the links and read them all. Those were insightful resources! I appreciate it.
I actually wonder what is your best way when you hit Writers-block!? It would be interesting for me to realize your resolution of writing and solution to solve this kinds of issue as well.
Warm Regards
Hi Shirian,
First of all thanks for your kind comments. Glad that you read the articles from the links I added. They are all relevant.
When I get writers block, I stop writing and do something completely different. Since I play the piano, that is what I do using m digital piano. Science has shown that the physical act of playing a musical instrument does wonders to the brain in helping to solve problems. When I finish playing, I get back to writing and that does the trick. New ideas start flowing and I complete my article.
If you play a musical instrument, do that. IF you don’t why not get a guitar or an inexpensive electronic keyboard and use your imagination on that.
I wish you all the best.
Edwin
Hi Edvin, Thanks for quick response. Wow! playing piano is fantastic way to overcome Writer-block. Unfortunately I can not do that but I will try it out to see how it would affect on my productivity.
For your success
Shirian