Everyone familiar with blogging has likely heard this statement at one time or another. Content is king. Develop great content and web visitors will flock to your blog and/or website. Although there are other aspects that contribute to a successful blog, by and large this statement holds true and is the foundation of great work on the Internet. This is the premise behind David Meerman Scott’s book “Cashing In With Content”.  I have read Scott’s other books, and the content theme holds true with the others as well. I will describe what is different about this book and why I recommend it to those wishing to develop a solid, long-term web strategy.

The Content Strategy
I really enjoyed “Cashing In With Content” for a variety of reasons. First the author describes why great content is important for a blog, website, or any other web initiative. Those who have read Scott’s other books will be familiar with this theme as he is consistent throughout his work when it comes to the importance of content. But this book goes far beyond further trumpeting the content theme. The author provides many examples, twenty to be exact, of companies who have used the content strategy with great success.

I have seen this sort of approach with other books, however there is one aspect that is unique with “Cashing In With Content”. The author provides examples across the spectrum – small, medium, and large businesses. These are not only startups who, in my experience, are the most likely to embrace the latest and greatest trends – sometimes met with success and other times with disaster, these are examples of established large firms who risk embracing a new strategy and are rewarded by their flexibility. Three examples of well known organizations highlighted in the book are Alcoa, Aerosmith, and Booz Allen, but there are many more.

Another interesting aspect is that examples of profit and nonprofit organizations are provided. Everything from big business, a small university, a political organization, a hospital, and many others are provided. This basically proves that regardless of the type of organization, the methodology may be applied and tailored to your specific needs. In the final section the author ties the content together nicely by listing a collection of best practices which were derived by common behavior from each of these organizations which drove them to success with the applied approach. For each best practice a “content cross-check” of each organization applying said best practice is provided as a real-world example. Finally, lessons learned are outlined to tie everything together in a nice package.

Real Life Application
I have found the strategy of developing great content and providing it for free to be very effective for driving traffic to your blog or website. What you do with this traffic of course is up to you. Although in my opinion, getting the attention of people is at least half the battle. Figuring out what to do with the traffic is a great problem to have!

However, this is not an easy approach for the faint of heart. As the author states, it does take time to implement – however the time is well spent. Content generation is a solid long term strategy. The positive results may not be realized instantly however they do occur gradually over time, and once the ball starts rolling the traffic really accumulates quickly in the long-term.

I have witnessed this first hand with our blog. Initially it was slow to start, but after generating a library of content the traffic ramps up quickly. Once a  large, substantial content archive is built you will begin receiving more residual web traffic from archived articles than you had from new content in the early days of using this approach. It has a sort of compounding effect which grows over time. As with most things in life, you get out of the approach what you put into it. If you consistently provide value, people will take notice and pass it along – before you know it your message will go viral.

Developing free, valuable content is a great web traffic building approach!

-John R. Sedivy of Cape Cod Branding