How to Create Engaging and Authoritative Content – Part 3

We have thus far discussed the 80/20 Rule for content creation, the need to create a hybrid niche/authority website, as well as embracing a proactive approach to your niche by attending conferences, workshops, and seminars (as well as becoming a multi-media content creator).

In this article, we will discuss one of the “bread and butter” strategies for creating profitable, authoritative, and engaging website content – becoming a content curator.  What’s great about this branch of content creation is that it can be both easily monetized and highly profitable.

Here are seven strategies to help you become premium content curator.

I) When it comes to your niche, start a weekly or monthly book review club.  This is one of the cornerstones of being a good content curator, and there are so many advantages to this strategy, especially when striving to be a niche/authority website.  Every industry-related book you read could provide you with dozens of ideas for future articles.  Additionally, the more you read about your industry, the more authority you’re able to project towards your audience through your writing.

Finally, if ever there was a content creation strategy were a client rewards you with a product purchase because of the quality of your writing, this is it.  You should become either an Amazon or Barnes & Noble sales affiliate, read the book, post an affiliate link on your website, provide a comprehensive review of the book, and if you give it a positive review, recommend they purchase it. 

If you want to take this strategy even further, then…

II) Create a top 10 “must read” book list for your niche.  Give each book a brief critique and explain why it would be a good resource, post affiliate links for each book, and then, boom, you’ve got a highly informative and monetized post with ten different products for sale.

You can always mix it up as well.  Do it by seasons (i.e. have both a summer and winter reading list).  Do it by individual authors (i.e. pick your favorite industry author and then rank their best books).  Break down an industry into individual niches (suppose your niche is cars, well then, do different reading lists for European, American, and Asian cars, as well as lists for race cars and antique cars). 

It’s just a great content creation strategy that has a lot of “bang for your buck” when it comes to monetization opportunities.

III) Rate products and services using the precious metal ranking system.  This is yet another easy curator strategy that carries with it a high profit potential, and I would suggest expanding that potential even further by adhering to the Honorable Mention, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum ranking system. 

But you also have a choice in regards to what product you decide to rank as platinum.  Is it platinum because it’s the most expensive?  Or is it platinum because it offers the best value to your clients relative to its cost? 

Only you can decide what truly makes a product platinum.  But you should also take into consideration that simply because a product is the most expensive doesn’t mean it’s the best product on the market, or that it’s even well made for that matter.

IV) Create a comprehensive list of the movers and shakers within your industry that includes websites, Twitter accounts, and Facebook pages…then pick a fight with them.  Allow me to properly explain this strategy.  For starters, if you’re looking to build web traffic, then befriending and posting on blogs and websites that are related to your industry is a great strategy, and you should take it even further by compiling a list of all the movers and shakers within your niche that includes their websites and social media accounts in the hopes of funneling traffic to them (while simultaneously letting them know that your doing this).

You have to take this on a case-by-case basis because you don’t want to burn bridges, but if possible, find an article or blog post that one of the “big fish” within your niche has posted, and create a scholarly rebuttal to it. 

For starters, this helps to enhance your authority within the field by showing your readers that you can go toe-to-toe with the leaders in your niche.  Second, if the rebuttal is good enough (especially if some of your readers frequent both sites) inevitably it will make its way back to the big fish in question. 

If they bite on it and offer a response on their own website, then you just created a huge opportunity to increase your visibility and reputation in your niche. 

V) Create a comprehensive list of all the laws, ordinances, taxes, and treaties that could impact your industry in any way, shape, or form.  Here is a great curator strategy that can also drastically enhance the level of respect and authority afforded to you within your niche, and the more comprehensive your database is (i.e.approaching it from a local, state, federal, and global perspective), the more traffic it will draw to your site.

VI) Enhance your authority by compiling market trends that you believe will have a profound impact on your niche in the future.  A perfect example of this strategy is to look at the trends that might impact online business in general over the next decade, can you name some?

I can.  The retirement of the Baby Boomer Generation (80 million strong and the wealthiest generation in American history), the explosion of microtasking companies (Uber, Lyft, Fiverr, Kickstarter, and TaskRabbit to name but a few), as well as the revolution in online education and how it could completely destroy the traditional, educational economy.  These are just a few systemic trends that all internet entrepreneurs should keep an eye on.

Creating these types of articles are a great way to increase and solidify your authority within a niche.  Keep these articles in a separate file, and whenever you encounter a news article which strengthens one of your predictions, be sure to make a new post which creates a backlink and references the old post proving that your prediction was correct.

VII) Be honest with your readership; create lists that both destroy myths within your niche as well as highlight drawbacks to your industry.  We’re talking about content creation, so what’s one of the key myths we should immediately dispel, especially if you’re a new blogger?  Rarely do you become rich overnight, and any internet “guru” that tells you otherwise is full of it.

In regards to industry drawbacks, there are a few things you should take into consideration.  The anonymity of the internet seems to bring out a viciousness and cruelty among some posters, especially trolls, and if you don’t have a rhinoceros skin that can handle criticism, let alone a guy that’s just being a raging asshole for no other reason than he enjoys it, you probably won’t last. 

Furthermore, it sucks investing so much time, effort, and energy into creating quality content only for someone to steal and plagiarize it without giving you any credit.  Finally, writing content can actually be a very time-consuming and exhausting job.  That’s why it’s so important to build up a comprehensive “tool kit” that can help you maintain productivity over the long haul.

Be honest with your readership.  Let them know about the drawbacks that come with being a part of your niche, as well as debunking any myths or misguided notions they might have about the industry at the outset.

Conclusion – If you’re looking to make it long-term as a content creator, then beyond raw talent, you really do need to start developing a comprehensive tool kit that you can always rely on regardless of writer’s block, time constraints, or personal exhaustion.  Being an information curator is one of the most reliable and profitable strategies you can bring to bear when needing to create quality content, and if you use it properly, it can also increase your authority and reputation within your niche. 

In our next article, well talk about another great tool that you should be utilizing – strengthening the relationship you have with your clients by crowd sourcing content topics.