Is the era of "content" over?

[Darren]

I was just wondering and thinking lately. It seems like I am reading....a lot. Most of it is what the industry considers "content". But really it is just a bunch of filler that can be parsed down to a good paragraph or two.

I am getting sick of reading all this "content" just to get to the point. Am I alone?

The internet changes fast. I am wondering if we are on the backside of the "content" craze. It seems to me that microblogging is the next wave with FaceBooks "Status Updates" and Twitter.

Thoughts?

[sub8hr]

Micro blogging is just another piece of the puzzle. It's difficult to call content a craze, it's a fundamental component of any site that conveys any kind of information. While it is sad that much "content" is total garbage stuffed with keywords for SEO, unless people just stop making websites or only put pictures on them, it's hard to imagine that content would go away. Regardless, the search engines will still use text on websites as the primary decision maker for what they are about for some time to come.

From a marketing perspective the goal of micro blogging is to keep your audience warm and drive them to the actual sales messages (ie, content) as they come out. Little one liners just don't have enough convincing power to be sales messages in and of themselves (if they did, men in bars would have figured out that magic pickup line that got a woman to go home with them every time by now).

Reminds me of what my writing and rhetoric teacher said freshman year of college. "First give them a sentence. Then if they are interested, give them a paragraph. If they are still interested after that , then give them a whole page."

[jetpacklife]

no.

Maybe there's a slowdown in the easy money in the content area, but there will always be a value in good writing.

[Darren]

Great posts sub8er and jetpacklife.

My concern I guess, is with reading "stuffing". I wind up just skimming things anymore. I want to stay informed but I do not have the time (or patience) to wade through mind-numbing pages of "content" just to find out it could have been summarized in a paragraph or two of USEFUL content.

And I think that is more what we are dealing with now. The whole content craze has produces myriads of "filler" for the sake of keywords but not much rich content.

Let me say that I am guilty of it too on my site. My market is women with school aged girls. They want info, info, info. So I fill it up for them. They feel more secure with a site that has too much info rather than not enough....but that is MY market. Not typical.

[sub8hr]

I think we will see a shortening of sales letters that ramble on for page after page. People just don't have time to read through all that crap and want to know what it's about quickly. It's kind of an antiquated format brought over from direct mail marketing. If anything, videos will probably become more standard as part of the online sales process. Many info marketers have already been doing it for a while.

[jkendrick]

I go with a very simple (non wall of text) approach:

- Start with a bold benefit at the top. This is something that relates directly to the pain felt by the consumer and ideally relates directly to your AdWords ad.

- Justify that benefit with a feature or features (also should be uniques and defensible differentiator if entering a crowded market), but keep it light. We solve your pain by doing... We create this benefit by doing ...

- Proof - this is where i put customer quotes that show that customer have experienced the benefit we promise

-Call to action - get them to take some action even if it isn't buying your product. Join a mailing list, download a case study, download a white paper or some collateral

Repeat as necessary if you have multiple benefits you want to tout, but I would keep it to three max and not try be everything to everybody.

[webgal]

Subheads break things up and offer a summary of the page for skimmers--a group which includes a large percentage.

[Matthew Connors]

I just came across a guy in another forum making $1000 bucks per day off about 50 articles on ezine with squidoo landing pages and about 5 affilaite programs.

He is only 19 years old and whilst his credentials at first seemed questionalbe i did some digging and it all stacks up..

His articles are so short i dont even know how he got ezine to accept them. The look to be about 250 words max.

His landing pages are also very short. about two to three short modules with a photo or two and thats it. His lenses would be no more then 300-400 words max

And yet hes had 2 $1000+ days in the last week.

Not a bad result for less is more.

[webgal]

Ezine doesn't accept affiliate links but he must drive traffic from the article to a page with affiliate links.

[Matthew Connors]

Hes driving them to a landing page thats passing them on to hop links

Thats the same way i do it, but my point is hes using just brief articles, breif landing page and having great success.

If you read his articles they certainly leave his readers wanting for more, as they hardly even touch on the subject, then bang a call to action. His landing page is also very short.. But his theme progression is good.