KaChing: How to Run an Online Business that Pays and Pays

Chapter 3. Content Is Not King ... It Is KaChing!

You might not be able to hear an actual KaChing sound as you're building an online business, but there is one sound that you'll come across so often it will remain stuck in your head like a bad pop song.

"Content is king."

It's the Internet's chorus, what everyone says when they give advice to new publishers, and what everyone believes as they build a web site.

And they're all right, of course. The Internet is made of content. It's what web sites are built to hold and it's the reason that people open a browser and type in a URL. Internet users surf to learn and be entertained, and they learn and are entertained by digesting content.

What they see will vary tremendously. Some people are just hoping to learn the latest football scores. Others want to read a report that explains why their team lost that match. And some people want to learn why some football tactics generally work better than others so that they can become football coaches.

Whatever you want to find online, whether it's information that's vital and important or trivial and entertaining, and however far you want to take your reading, the Internet is capable of delivering content that tells you what you want to know.

To build an audience online, you have to create content. The better the content, the bigger your audience, and the more influence you'll have over your readers. The more readers and influence you have, the more advertisers will pay to pitch to them, and the higher ...