11 Unique Content Sources in Saturated Markets
Hamlet Batista commented on my last post that a problem with blogging is that many people look to the same sources for inspiration and information to blog about. Even in the most saturated markets there are a wide array of unique data sources. Here are some of my favorites:
- your own experiences - how you save time, your favorite work tips, things that slow you down, interactions with others, how your perspective has changed over time, etc.
- encourage readers to ask you questions - use a button like this one, and run open threads where you answer questions
- find common questions in forums that are typically poorly answered - why doesn't Google show all my backlinks and why hasn't my PageRank changed? etc.
- common misconceptions in your marketplace which are spread as fact - new websites can't rank, etc
- interview other experts, create interactive contests, offer awards, etc. - these touches the ego of others and uses their reach to help market your site
- bring back old classics that are not talked about too much in the current marketplace and compare them to the current market. You can't go wrong bringing up Orwell's Politics and the English Language, Bush's As We May Think, Hardin's The Tragedy of the Commons
- show how your topical language has shifted - compare news from the 1950s to today, there are many stories from the 1980s and earlier which are easily accessible via Google News, but have not been pushed heavily on the web graph
- compare information from different formats - blogs, magazines, books, dvds, conferences, stuff in Google Scholar, etc.
- content behind firewalls - bring these ideas into the active parts of the web
- find ideas that were popular and spread on other networks, seamlessly aggregate the best parts in a new way which allows the structure to add significant value
- parallel markets - read information from other markets and relate it to your current market
Published: July 10, 2007 by Aaron Wall in publishing & media
Comments
Great post, Aaron.
But did you notice that your first post today was about how people post too often to maintain quality - and then you posted twice again in the same day! I got a little kick out of that. . .not to suggest anything about the quality of your posts, of course.
I happen to work for a company that enjoys "scraping" content from other sources, recycling it through less-than-stellar copywriters and posting it as their own. It's despicable and I want to quit pretty badly. Too bad the job market isn't phenomenal right now. . .
Haha, I wrote a post about the above mentioned Orwell essay. It made the front page of Digg and drew hundreds of backlinks continuing to this day.
Aaron - it is good practice to use people's names. Especially if the comment came from a single person. ;-)
Great tips!
I thought the same thing too Mike. Post less and all that...but guess what? We are here reading so what does that tell you? How many Bloggers could get you to visit twice in the same day or the same week for that matter?
Thanks Aaron.
Thanks for the credit and for the link love :-)
Marvia,
Oh for sure - I check Aaron's blog just about every day so it makes sense for him to post content regularly. I just thought it was humorous in light of that early post.
No question that Aaron doesn't post pulp to fill space - otherwise I wouldn't bother checking back so often.
I really like the first one as I think that our own experience is the key point when blogging. We make our posts more personal and we can create some interesting value as even popular topics may be seen from different perspectives.
Excellent post, definately bookmarked. Whenever I'm short of ideas I will refer back to this post.
Great work Aaron!
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