Stephan Miller
How to Create More Content for Your Products

How to Create More Content for Your Products

Illustration of a scribe writing
Image via Wikipedia

How do I write about my products? I have built a lot of different sites for a lot of different people and this question always comes up. I’m not quite sure why. Some of these people had had brick and mortar stores for years But somehow when it comes to writing about their products, they draw a blank.

And I can understand that. Most people don’t like to write. And if that’s the issue, I can understand that. But don’t tell me you don’t have anything to say about your product.

The best salesman know everything there is to know about the product they are selling. It is no different on the Internet. In fact, maybe even a bit easier to show all the knowledge you have of your products on the Internet. Most hosting providers will give you a virtually unlimited amount of storage. Use it. Use it to build content around your products.

And it doesn’t matter if it’s a product you manufacture, sell retail or sell as an affiliate. Those with the most information (backed with the right promotions) will win the prize. And yes, I did list affiliates, because there are a lot of companies out there that will create a product and just forget about it because they know there is an army of affiliates waiting to promote that product. Be an army of one. by not stopping with the information your vendor gives you.

And before you start writing content, remember this: you know a lot more than who you are writing for. That seems like a simple statement, but you have to consistently remind yourself this. I did not know how new newbies could be until I helped someone with their first Wordpress installation. A sentence for an intermediate Wordpress user can translate into a thesis for a newbie.

What Type of Content?

First there is the product itself.  What can you say about it? What color is the? What sizes it? Does it have any distinctive markings on it? What does it look like? If you had to identify it with the police sketch artist could you? I’m not asking these questions to be silly. I am asking them from experience. You’d be amazed at what people type into the search box. If you can answer that question, then your report is traffic.

What are the features of the product? We’ve all heard about features and benefits. The features are basically what a product does. And the benefits list how you benefit from the product. You’ve probably heard that you should focus on the benefits, but we are not just in the advertising field, we are also in the search engine field. A benefit may get someone to buy, but people search for features. When I want to make sure the gaps under my doors aren’t letting in cold air, I don’t search for “lower heating bills”. I search for “seal gap under door”.

But keep benefits in mind also. Benefits are for selling to people that aren’t in the market or at least, don’t think they are. The person on a mission will search for “seal gap under door”, but the person just browsing will need to be thrown the hint “lowers heating bills” which will jog his memory about last month’s bill. And if you have a lot of products that fulfill that benefit, you’re in luck. Benefits are more general and content is easier to find and create.

Tutorials are another way to expand the content you have available with a product. Again, it doesn’t matter if the product is your own or you are just an affiliate. A lot of affiliates have cleaned up by creating a bigger resource for the product they are selling than the vendor themselves. How do you use the product normally? What are some unconventional uses? What are some really unconventional uses? How do you do one very specific thing with the software? How do you do another? And another? Be clear and write good step by step instructions.

Written text is one form of content. We also have pictures, pictures you may need for the tutorials above. It is best to give these files a keyword based file name to help with your ranking. It may also help to host your images on a social image site like Flickr to get a bit more extra traffic. Then just add the flickr code to your posts or your pages.

Videos are another form of content that can help. Creating videos of you using or installing the product you sell. And make sure that you don’t just host the video on your site. Spread it as far you can by uploading it to every video site you can find.

Put a contact form on your site and beg for questions. Then answer them with posts when it makes sense to do so. If no one is asking questions, go to forums and answer sites and answer them there. Then go back to your site and write a more detailed answer.

Where to Put Your Content

Your site is a good start. But it is not the end.

You noticed that I said to host your pictures and videos on a social site if you can. This was not just to save you storage space. These sites have communities, huge communities.

There are also social networks, article directories and forums out there. On the internet, you have to think about potential. There are potential customers on these sites who will never find your site unless you make it visible to them. But here is not the place to sell. Here is the place to write anything related to your products that will set you up as an expert in your field or niche.

No product descriptions. No sales pages. No features. Show your knowledge of a product by covering it’s niche. If you sell computers, write about how to install a video card. If you sell blog themes, write about css

Content ideas are everywhere, you just have to look. And if you listen, potential customers will give you the best content ideas. But don’t be greedy and keep all of your content on site. The benefits of spreading your content around to various social sites and networks are massive. Now get to work. You have a lot of content to create.

Stephan Miller

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Kansas City Software Engineer and Author

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