Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is the difference between 1,000 unique hits that cost you $.08 each, or 1,000 unique hits that were free. If you optimize your website that that it appears high in the search engine results, traffic will begin to pour in. And, as the old adage goes, “where there is traffic, there is money.”

Having a steady influx of fresh, unique content is the easiest way to maintain high rankings on the SERPs (search engine results page). Google will penalize your website if you do not maintain high quality content, so as your website develops and begins to draw an income you may want to consider hiring a copywriter. If you’re someone like me and would rather do it yourself, now would be the time to prepare yourself for a bit of dedicated time every day to ensure that your website(s) are taken care of.

Other Advantages Associated With Unique Content

Fresh content has other uses than just SEO, though that is a major part of it. Fresh content will also draw in new visitors along with keeping your current visitors coming back. Never underestimate the value of a dedicated viewer base- that’s the reason that TV shows like The Simpsons have been around as long as they have. Affiliate marketing is no different, as the website is simply a venue to display ads, just like a TV show.

• Unique content maintains stability – New and returning visitors will ensure a steady income stream. I have websites that only receive 200 uniques a day, and 60% of them are returning visitors. Guess what? Those websites are my highest converting ones, constantly making me $30-$40 a day each. All it takes is 15 minutes a day of my time writing new content for them.
  

• Unique content creates authority – Ahh, this is quite important. Establishing yourself as an authority figure (such as John Chow has done with his blog) fast-tracks the community building process, as people are always looking to take good advice from someone who knows what they’re talking about.This can work against you if you pretend to be an authority figure when you actually aren’t. If your viewer base were to find out your reputation, likely followed by your income, would suffer dramatically. Save yourself the trouble of having your dot.com aspirations destroyed and learn about the subject before proclaiming yourself an authority.

Problems Associated With Unique Content

Normally I’d have skipped something like this, but I have heard from a few people that there are problems associated with unique content. I spent a few days racking my brain until I came up with the only two possible reasons that I could ever imagine. These reasons aren’t even problems, but rather the cost of doing business online.

• Writing fresh content takes time – If you aren’t a fast typer or able to put your thoughts into words, writing a constant supply of fresh content can take up a lot of time. When I first started copywriting it would take me nearly half an hour to write 500 words. Thankfully, I’ve grown a lot since then and learned ways to speed up my progress without adversely affecting my quality at all, turning 30 minutes into 15 minutes.

• Hiring a copywriter/ghost writer is expensive – This I half agree with. On one hand, yes, paying a copywriter adds to your cost of doing business. However, if your websites are making money, think about how much more money you will make from the content that was written for you, not to mention how much time the copywriter saved you.

I’ll get into my details about outsourcing various elements of your business in later articles, as I feel that’s a subject that should be touched on.