If you followed correctly you now have a great domain name, that is hosted at your favorite hosting compan,y but when you do a search for it you land on an error page saying “the page you are requesting is not available…blah..blah” Do not refresh it like they are suggesting since there is nothing YET on there.
What is content and how do we create it?
Content is what a web site displays. A word of caution to begin with: if you want to put a lot of pictures on your site, they will not count much for content as words are what matters. Furthermore, if a person has a slow dial-up internet connection, your site will take forever to load-up as pictures usually take longer to open and the visitor will leave your site.
Creating content is writing text that will be of value to your visitors. This is the main reason we often recommend your first site to be about something you are passionate or at least have knowledge in. It will be easier to write about something you know. If you have no idea and get the blank page syndrome, do not worry, there are solutions.
First, you need a text editor: windows office usually does not come standard on computers and you have to “donate” money (about 150 to 200$) to Bill Gates. There is a free shareware that is perfectly legal that does the exact same thing that most Windows office features. It is called www.openoffice.org .You can visit the web site now and download it for free. It also has another cool feature I like: it can change a regular document into a PDF by just clicking on a button. ..but we are getting ahead of ourselves here!
If you are lucky, you just open a document and your text will flow. Once you have filled a page, you save it. You have just created content for your web site. There is an important element you need to keep in mind: your text should be rich in keywords and related keywords but in a pleasing to read manner. I am amused to see all those keywords and keyword related software as when a person writes in a good manner, the text often has the perfect keywords density it needs.
If you are stuck in front of a blank page, here are some solutions:
- You can take a deep breath, relax and then…do a Google search on your topic. Just take in all the information you can. Then, go back to your document and re-write what you have just read in your own words.
DO NOT COPY ANYTHING DIRECTLY FROM THE WEB. It is illegal and will actually have your web site ignored by the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc)
You can buy articles or hire a person to write them for you. A good article service I use is called article alliance at http://www.bestarticles.net/articlealliance.html .You will need to provide your keywords and hopefully the title of the article you need. I do not recommend you hire an article writer in the beginning as you want your web site to reflect your personality.
-If you are good at talking: record yourself chatting with a person about your topic (dog education for example). Then, you can have the text transcript by a person you hire on the web (by doing a Google search). You can also use such software as Dragon Naturally Speaking. It costs around 150$ and you will need to “train” it to recognize your voice. Many people have had great results with it. You will need to edit the text after as there will be typos and funny words.
I personally gave up on my Dragon Naturally Speaking software for two reasons:
1) I type faster than I talk.
2) With my accent, the words that came out of the software were sometimes hair rising!!!
What about Private Label Rights you ask?
Private label rights material (text, templates) are products that are sold to people with the rights to use them as their own. These products are often sold to hundreds if not thousands of people at once. If you use a PLR (private label right) article and put it up on your site, the odds are good that someone else will have done the same thing and you will have again what we call “duplicate content” which is almost as good as having nothing.
I personally use PLR articles in a way that helps me create fresh unique content rapidly. I copy-paste five PLR articles (you are allowed to do this as you own the rights) and then I just copy-paste little pieces that I put in another document. I read it, rewrite it in my own words and when my page is full, I have a unique good article on my topic. I can then post it on my web site. This way, it takes me about 10 minutes to create my own articles starting from the PLR articles I have.
Owning rights to PLR articles and keeping them in a folder can save you time and money when you need to create content fast.
What about Public Domain Work?
Although I have heard many things about using public domain work to create content, I get the impression it is a tedious work and you have to know where to research and then change the content to be original. This is not the best way to create content. For example, if you have the genius idea to put the book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill on your web site as it is a public domain book, you will be competing with 5 million 5 hundred and fifty other people!
For starters a web site that has 5 to ten pages is good. Over time, you will come back and nurture your site by feeding it with new and fresh content and it will grow.
Joel Comm has created a very high quality product called monthly templates. He has done the research and created the templates and offers the text for sites ready for adsense.
I don't think that beginners in internet marketing can make a decent amount of money just by copy-pasting these sites. On the other hand, the monthly templates can provide you with valuable material that you would need to modify to create your own unique product.
In this regard, subscribing to the monthly templatse can be worth it (do not buy this product if you have no use for it).
All right, we understand that content is king. The truth of the matter is that the King cannot thrive alone. He needs to have people come join him. This is the reason you need traffic to your web site…which we will cover in the next sections!
HERE IS YOUR CALL TO ACTION:
You need to create at least five pages of pure unique content either on a word document or open office document. When you have filled a page with interesting content, you have a web page. Keep your own style and write as if you are writing to a friend, your potential customer. If this is easy, continue writing another five pages as this will grow your site. If you are stuck, record yourself talking to a friend about your market and have someone (or use dragonnaturallyspeaking) to get a written version of your document. Congratulations! You have just created unique content for your web site.
I personally use PLR articles in a way that helps me create fresh unique content rapidly. I copy-paste five PLR articles (you are allowed to do this as you own the rights) and then I just copy-paste little pieces that I put in another document. I read it, rewrite it in my own words and when my page is full, I have a unique good article on my topic. I can then post it on my web site. This way, it takes me about 10 minutes to create my own articles starting from the PLR articles I have. 
Although I have heard many things about using public domain work to create content, I get the impression it is a tedious work and you have to know where to research and then change the content to be original. This is not the best way to create content. For example, if you have the genius idea to put the book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill on your web site as it is a public domain book, you will be competing with 5 million 5 hundred and fifty other people!
You need to create at least five pages of pure unique content either on a word document or open office document. When you have filled a page with interesting content, you have a web page. Keep your own style and write as if you are writing to a friend, your potential customer. If this is easy, continue writing another five pages as this will grow your site. If you are stuck, record yourself talking to a friend about your market and have someone (or use dragonnaturallyspeaking) to get a written version of your document. Congratulations! You have just created unique content for your web site.