Content is King, Not the Empire

So, you decided to start a blog. Millions of people had decided so in the past, and more are doing the same each and every day.

Each of them do it for different purpose but if you want to make money somehow it takes more than a decision. You need a plan.

Here’s a typical business model for blogging.

Start a blog. Produce valuable content. You can either inform people about something you know about or do the hard work so your readers don’t have to.

A few people stumble into a topic by chance and then grow a blog to thousands of visitors per month before even knowing it.

Focus on Content, and They Will Come?

It’s a true story. My younger sister kept blogging for about six months and grew the traffic level to her blog so much that her hosting company sent a note recommending an upgrade for her account.

After checking it out for her, it seemed like she broke the monthly data transfer (bandwidth) limit. It’s hard to believe. I thought it was some sort of junk traffic from spam bots or similar, but upon further investigation the traffic was for real.

You may call her lucky, but she also worked very hard to produce good content every day for six months before reaching that level, which I never did a few years ago.

I mean, I was all over the place starting blogs upon blogs. My strategy was to throw a lot of things against the wall and hoped some of them would stick.

Not until I started to focus on a handful of blogs that I am able to start seeing significant result. Some people just have to learn the hard way.

The Secret Ingredient

If you ask me the secret ingredient for the success of any blog, it must be content. That’s why so many bloggers say it. Content is king.

The thing is, this is also where people disagree. Content without traffic is useless. Certainly some bloggers find relationships built from blogging are more important. Reaching influencers, for instance, can be far more valuable in the long run than customer traffic.

Despite what others say about content, the truth remains. Without it, there will be no relationships, no further business, no contact with influencers, no nothing.

Content plays an integral role in building a blog and web presence. People read your blog posts and become attached to you as the blogger. Content attracts search engine spiders which then send you traffic.

It is the window to the world, showing people what you are about, how you can help your blog readers, and everything else.

Wrong Presumptions About the King

Most people who disagree that content is king usually only have the gold crown in their mind. They just think content is not the only thing that matters to a blog.

Just like hands can’t arguably be more important than the rear end, as I said earlier in the title, content can’t be everything.

If it is king, then there should also be queen, rooks, knights, bishops, and pawns — to put the discussion in the perspective of the chess.

Content promotion may be the queen. Relationships may as well be the knights.

But do we care? Do we have to?

The analogy may not be perfect, but it is not what most people should care either.

Suffice to say that content is an important part of your blog, but you also have to allocate time for other activities as well if you want to grow your blog and make it successful.

Finding the Time for Everything

The challenge is, of course, to find enough time for everything. Content creation takes a lot of time if you want to do it right.

Bloggers are more likely to endorse or link to blogs who they are familiar with, and those who have great content. By that, you also need to build relationships with other bloggers.

I haven’t even mentioned about keyword research, search engine optimization, the importance of usability and conversion in design, social media, your monetization or sales process and the whole enchilada.

Your mileage may vary but still in my experience content production takes up to 40 or 50 percent of the total time I work on my blog business.

Now, do I think content should claim the throne? Definitely, but not to the point that I forget about promotion and relationships.

Let the empire be at peace. Focus on those activities instead of who actually owns the crown. Shall we?

Your turn, what do you think?

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