Ken Evoy, that venerable of marketers, has always preached it and his practice has made other webmasters' sites perfect: Content is King! Indeed, many successful online marketers have made their money in direct-selling web sites. But, unless you have the copywriting savvy of Marlon Sanders and others like him, content is the way to go.
Here are a few solid reasons why:
It makes you look like an expert.
Even if you don't write all the content in your site, if visitors like what they read they'll perceive you as a webmaster who publishes value. Add a few of your own and they'll visit again looking for more.
Content is good for link popularity.
If a site with content links to your site with content, you stand a better chance of going up in search engine rankings. Google, for one, favors sites with content.
Incidentally, if you're for a free but easy way to link with other web sites of similar content as yours, here's a highly recommended system: http://solidbytes.sitesell.com/value-exchange/
It doesn't look like all you want is their money. With content you can intersperse your affiliate links here and there and make them look like recommendations instead of blatant sales pitches. Readers are more likely to click on a friendly recommendation than a link that shouts, "Buy me, buy me!"
Visitors will more likely subscribe to your newsletter.
Read again the first point above. When you're perceived as an expert or, at the very least, someone who knows what he's talking about, people are bound to take notice and would want to hear more. I subscribed to newsletters not because I was promised some valuable gift, but because their site told me it would be worth subscribing to their newsletter.
A content-full web site might not get you instant sales, but it will give you steadily-growing income that will come from loyal subscribers and visitors. What you want is a long-term business and not a fly-by-night.
Keywords: marketing content, copywriting, writing
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