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As affiliate marketing continues to mature, the stakes will increase. Our industry faces more and more legislation—between state advertising tax laws and federally-mandated marketing regulations. Instead of being seen as obstacles to overcome, these growing pains should be seen as catalysts for affiliate marketers to find news way to build upon their revenue.
One way this might happen? Content. The premium placed on providing actual content will increase with the number of new affiliates entering the industry at any given moment—everyone’s drawing from the same pool of consumers and similar offers. This means that many of the industry’s brightest are in the position to become their own self-sustaining content providers—and while revenue should always remain the bottom line, being able to pull in a dedicated audience will help stabilize that revenue to some degree.
Why Content Is King
The trick to getting that audience? Top-shelf content. More simply: Well-written, well-researched stories. Frequently, this will mean having to find a compromise between content quality and keyword optimization. Right now, the most successful web properties, like Gawker Media for instance, have managed to strike that balance, by publishing provocative stories designed to keep user engagement high. This means they’re netting high pageviews, which in turn translates to high bids for ad space on their media network.
Writing a blog is a lot like testing a landing page: You’re going to have to keep testing until you start approaching desirable results. Currently, many affiliates discount the need for coherent and consistent content, either by outsourcing it to a variety of different cut-rate freelancers or giving it only a scrap of attention. This is a missed opportunity.
Content is and will remain king because no one on the web visits a website because they want to be served ads or because they want to click through to learn more about X, Y, or Z offer. They want to be informed, entertained, and amused and to do that, content providers—which affiliates, especially those who serve banner ads are now precariously positioned into becoming—need to figure out how to up their game.
2011 has already seen a whirlwind of innovation sweep through the internet space and while most of it has ruffled feathers in the social media corner, affiliate marketing is going through its own changes: Affiliate Summit West this year at a record 4,600+ marketers in attendance this year. Our numbers are becoming bigger and while this brings a wealth of opportunity, it also brings a lot of competition.
Most importantly, it puts the pressure on those of us who have been in this space for a while now to figure out how we can leverage our talents to scale new heights.
A key part of that ascent? Content.
About the Author:
Blue Phoenix Media is a NYC-based affiliate network. Check out their blog here. Learn how to join their growing team of publishers here.
Author
Becky is the Senior Content Marketing Manager at TUNE. Before TUNE, she led a variety of marketing and communications projects at San Francisco startups. Becky received her bachelor's degree in English from Wake Forest University. After living nearly a decade in San Francisco and Seattle, she has returned to her home of Charleston, SC, where you can find her enjoying the sun and salt water with her family.
Content has always been king..it’s just some people didn’t know that until recently!
[…] What’s better way to spend a chilly, frostbitingly cold January Monday than to stop by the HasOffers guest blog for a one-off? Our topic of choice? Content. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last 24 days, 2011 is shaping up to be the year of the internet–all kinds of fortunes are being sunk into the development of online entities. How does that relate to affiliate marketers? Content. Read about the necessity of content at HasOffers’ blog here. […]
[…] – And in case you missed it yesterday, we swung by HasOffers to offer our two cents on the increasing importance of content. [HasOffers] […]
Content is King, but not any content, It must be high quality, unique and informative. If it in addition is provoking a debate can arise that can engage people and bring a lot more people to your blog or website. Moreover, search engines are getting constantly better at recognizing good content and will more and more ignore low quality sites.
Content is really king in seo. My opinion is that without content it
wouldn’t be possible to convey ideas and brands and users couldn’t be
reached and stimulated.