This is a guest post from Chris at The Traffic Blogger.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? If you had a few hours I might actually debate the answer to this question with you but, for now, let’s use this as an analogy for making money online.
Which came first, the content or the relationship? Everyone tells me how making money online involves having awesome content, in fact, many would recommend having the best content. However, if you think about this simple question of which came first, the content or the relationship, you will begin to realize that the money isn’t in the content, but rather, in the relationship.
On The Traffic Blogger, I once talked about how content was king and an exposure channel was his queen. However, over time I have come to realize that your content is meaningless without this exposure channel, which is really nothing more than a series of relationships that allows you to advertise your content. Something became clear to me:
The content wasn’t king, but rather the relationships themselves.
Which came first, the content or the relationship? The relationship did, and it is for this reason alone that relationships should be your primary focus if you intend to make money online. Your content will not get read by anyone if they are never shown it in the first place. People are who you want to connect with, and in the Why People Course, I go to great lengths explaining why your interactions with people are your most important tactics as an Internet marketer. Now, am I saying that your content can be a series of grammatically incorrect posts with blurred images and a title banner created by your three year old son in ms paint? Perhaps if you are selling crayons to children, but otherwise, you are going to want to create kingly content regardless of whether you view relationships as more important than the content itself.
So how can you apply this mindset and change the way you behave online? For starters, you should be going out to meet your audience, not waiting for them to come to you. If all you do is focus on your content then your relationships will never exist or they will die out if you had any to begin with. Work hard to appear everywhere your potential audience could be, whether that be a series of forums, YouTube channels, pod casts, other blogs, etc, all in an effort to get your information in front of their faces.
Relationships are the new “Content”
that you should be considering “King.”
Ever go to a party and hang around that one person in the room who is the most social? Guess what, the Internet is no different. If you are that cool person in the room with the answers and more importantly, who is willing to listen to questions in the first place, then you will have a flock of followers in no time. Did that social person sit on a coach in the middle of the party doing nothing but texting on his phone? No, he was up and about at the buffet line and in the corners where guests were gathering.
Typing up content on your blog for no one to read but your mother
is the equivalent of focusing solely on content as your “King.”Make relationships your king and the money will follow.
By focusing on relationships instead of selling products, I was able to take a blog from 2,000 to 10,000 subscribers in 6 months. This mindset change will have that much of an impact on your blog, I promise. What’s more, your audience will literally beg you to sell them your opinions, ideas and products.
People love a leader, and if relationships are your “King” then leading will be something you do naturally. Speaking of naturally, humans naturally want to be lead by someone who provides something different than the rest. This doesn’t necessarily have to be the best option for them, but as long as it is different than what they are used to then they will keep on following you.
By being yourself, you will inherently be different than anyone else.
Listen to your audience to become the leader in your niche.
Be different by being yourself, building relationships and listening, then the money will follow.
Make the switch today, go from focusing on content to focusing on relationships. After all, it’s who you know, not what you know, and the Internet is no different! I would love to have you follow me on Twitter.
Gail Gardner
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Are you serious about this, I think your relationship is very strong that’s why you say.
And your content is too good than why you say that.
But i agree this that relationship is king
Great stuff
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From my own experience is seems that in some niches personal relationships are a must in order to get any coverage, especially if the field is naturally getting a lot of social sharing. In others though (especially technology related), I’ve noticed that people really don’t care who writes on their blog and aren’t even interested in hearing about who you are, what you do and how exactly your experience relates to their blog and audience. I sometimes feel like I’m talking to a machine, not a person, while dealing with people running tech/gadget blogs.-J
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Are you serious with this?
I think relationships is build by content, so for me, content is the king : )
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Interesting premise, but I must disagree. The relationship has to start somewhere or there is none. Whether it’s a conversation, making friends, a party between friends, or social forums online, someone or something has to get the conversation going to start or sustain the relationship. Just my opinion.
I was very pleased to find this web-site.I wanted to thanks for your time for this wonderful read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you blog post.
“Did that social person sit on a coach in the middle of the party”
I think people would gather around the social person if he is sitting on a coach. But I wont advice you to do that at the next party you go to.
I never really understood the whole: What was first the chicken or the egg question. It’s just a funny thing, for the rest why would I care? Now we have chickens and we have eggs. I love ‘m both.
Same goes for content and relationships. They are both important, one without the other is useless.
I do believe it is easier to make connections with other bloggers if you are writing awesome content already. Then you can do some guest blogging, get some shares and retweets etc.
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Well, To me both content and relationship are equally important. Since great relationship only emerge if we writ3e content to our cutomer need.
Relationships and building a strong healthy network is a major key to success. If the friendships exist people trust what you have to say. This in turn leads them to believe in what products, services or features one is marketing.
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You done amazing job in your blog and I feel so nice to read this informational blog.
I totally agree. Relationships are extremely important and are king. Without them, what are you? (Typing this while using some jojoba oil on me lol)
Many of the most commonly used aphorisms turn out to be garbage under close scrutiny. Though one of the easiest ways to develop mass relationships is through the content you provide. You can ruin those relationships if you send them enough garbage. I will agree that most overlook the small things such as one-on-one questions and answers that can quickly snowball though.
Sidenote: If the chicken was the first in the chicken evolutionary chain, then the egg came first as an egg will not be warm enough to hatch without a chicken sitting on it. If there was an evolutionary link before the chicken, then it was the egg.
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This is the part I remember from my own experience:
The relationship did, and it is for this reason alone that relationships should be your primary focus if you intend to make money online.
It basically sums up the entire article.
Content isn’t king???
Relationships do matter.. much of how people follow your music or blog because they end up liking you… but I still think content is king
In my opinion content is important as relationships. Without great content surfers would leave your website as soon as they see it.
I guess you could also say that relationships is king instead of content, but we do build those relationships on the actual content, you can’t really have a blog with lists of phone numbers and build relations on those articles.
I would call it a 50-50 deal, can’t have results without taking advantage of both.
Relationships will be the key in the future. The more people you know the better, not only in the real world but the digital world aswell.
Relationships are imperative, because eventually you will need to be face-to-face with a prospect to turn them into a buyer. This can be online, on the phone, or in person. It’s about people. But, your content must balance the relationship, or you will be exposed as a pretender.
This is the part I remember most:
The relationship did, and it is for this reason alone that relationships should be your primary focus if you intend to make money online.
It basically sums up the entire article.
With the help of social media, we can meet other people. We can build more relationships, more friends or even lovers as well. Before, establishing a relationship is hard. But today, due to technology like the web, it’s just easy. It’s as if your just in one place. Relationships can now be easily made.
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This is correct! Relationships build relationships, period. The more people you know, the more people you will end up knowing and social media does exactly that!
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With the increasing popularity of social media, relationship is going to be the KING
Very true…If you got nice relations then you can easily get promotions without having the need of great contents
Totally agree – if there is no personality behind the post people won’t keep coming back or even subscribe.
Great post, I am also a believer in content. Everyone’s time is valuable and there are a lot of sources competing for their attention. If you do not provide quality content, your voice will be drowned out in the crowd.
However, this article points out the reality that even if your content is great, if nobody sees it, then the quality of your content will not matter.
Relationships have to more than just a backlink and a blurb on your site they have to have more than one degree of connection. It is harder to develop these relationships but it is worth it for high page rank and high traffic sites. Pick a partner that is relevant to your site
Great point! In the beginning I felt if I provided good content, the readers would follow. However, I soon realized there are a lot of blogs/websites out there as a result being found was not as easy as I thought.
Relationships are important, but there has to be some substance beneath them, and that is where quality content comes in. So (to use your analogy), there may be the ‘most social’ person at the party, and they instantly win people over, but if they are hollow underneath the initial attraction, people may actually take an interest in the fellow texting quietly in the background. Not a social creature but get to know him, and the relationship ends up being more powerful and longer-lasting.
I think showing up at the party is a good start. IT works in social circles and surely works in social media 🙂
I’m not sure whether or not I agree with the claims you make in this post. I think, if I had to take a stance, I would say that the content and the relationships formed are equally important. Neither one, by itself, will ultimately result in a successful blog. You can have awesome, thought-provoking content, but without establishing relationships to bring people to your blog, your content will never get read. The opposite is also true; you can form all the connections you want to other bloggers by commenting on others’ blogs, promoting your blog using social media, etc., but if your content isn’t up to par, you can’t expect to engage your readers or have them coming back.
This is the truth of online marketing that credit sales any thing you want and having lot many relationships even helps to improvise your work every now and then.
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I can`t say no about it. This moment social media shortcut my need of traffic. Old time, I have to wait my links support my index in Google and now all I have to do is calling my friend to read what I just wrote and I got the audiences that I want
True…And that is why, every small or big brands are concentrating in building relationship using the social media
I must agree that without that strong relationship with others, content will still be useless no matter how good it is. You need to at least balance this two factor or else you can’t totally be certain of your success.
we cannot judge which one is king.each one of them are equally important for blog development ,traffic or any other thing.each of them has their own advantages
satish,
1)
I shall never post or read a very beautiful and elaborate site if I get a trace of evidence that it is spam farm and it is filled on a daily basis by bot
2)
I shall never notice any importance of content if there are live human communication, interaction, response on the topics that are interesting to me
In setting up Technology Bloggers, I discovered how true this was…
Basically, despite good quality content, it was people I already knew who helped kick start the blog. The comments came from people who I have good online relations with, and not people I don’t know. I am sure with time this will change and I will make new relations, but I can absolutely see what you are saying 🙂
Good, informative article!
Thanks 🙂
Christopher – Technology Bloggers Admin Team
I think it really depends on many things. For example, if you are building a business that relies on networking with other heavily, I would imagine relationships would be at the top of your agenda. However, no matter how many good relationships you have, if those people get to your site and see no useful content, then you are going to lose them. So, I would say, both content and relationship can be the king!
I’ve said this at least twenty times today.
Content is not king; relationships are. No matter how you twist and turn everything — it’s all about the relationship in the end.
I’ve built a great relation with some of my blog readers leading to lots of natural links which is just awesome.
/Nabil, from Sweden.
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I would say that Content and Relationships are the kings. If you can combine those two together then you have a strong and powerfull mix.
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How is it possible to go for communication without any concern ( relationships ) .You have proved all logically but I am emphasizing that relationships have priority in all sort of business.
In my opinion, though relationships might seem to outweigh the importance of content, but the difference is not very large. Just relationships would give you backlinks, no doubt, but to get the most out of those links, you need to have sound content. It is clear to everyone what Google Sandbox is and how it kicks out links, else it would have been too easy for the SEOs.
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You rightly said that relationship is king. I don’t listen to proud people around me even if they have pearls of wisdom to give to me. May be my loss but I don’t care.
I think the take away here should be that abandoning content or relationships for one or the other is folly. You should work hard to write content that actually builds relationships and then do your best to market it and secure said relationships.
Scientists actually announced last year that they had somehow determined that the chicken actually did come before the egg. I think content makes the best foundation and from there it is easier to establish relationships.
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Had they tested it on monkeys first before applying to humans?
I don’t think monkeys or humans were looked at. They looked at chickens and eggs and how the eggs get formed and whatnot. There are lots of articles if you google it. 🙂
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I think to be successful you really need to focus on both content and relationship building.
[Note: Hi Kim, I do not allow any gambling related links so I changed your link to business card holders instead. If you prefer something else just ask. Do drop by our gift blog and take advantage of KeywordLuv both there and here. We will approve links from “competitors” so feel free to put business card related comments and links in our business card holders category and other types of personalized gifts in our other categories. Just don’t use gambling related links. I may edit them but others involved might just delete or ignore them.]
Well I will have to agree with you now. My own experience has taught me that relationship and subscribers are really important for making money. However if you are into pay per click side and your traffic is mainly from search engine then Content and SEO is the king. In blogging Relationship>Content is the king. Thanks for your nice thoughts..
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For starters, you are right but for the authority bloggers they have cemented their relationships and gained incredible popularity through producing exceptionally good content. I think relationship in this context is a sister to kingly content.
[Sorry, no gambling related links allowed.]
According to my views,content is always king.I can say relationship is also depends upon quality content.Because if your site or blog has quality content then there ll more subscriber or reader for your website or blog.Then you can create great relationship over the internet for your community.But in case of low quality content,no one ll read your content.Then how ll you create relationship?
“Don’t resist the idea. Implement it. That’s what I intend to do.” good advice – in this debate of content vs relationships there is no “King” just a court of jesters flopping around looking silly while those that implement both successfully are the real kings.
It is important to find out where the big fish are swimming and not try and have relationships with everybody. You cannot be all things to all whether it be online marketing or face to face marketing. Go where the gold is as he/she who educates the market will own the market. Automate, Automate , Automate.
@Leigh-Ann
Automation can only go so far. The more you engage your readers the more people will want to come back to your site. Just because you automate some of the content doesn’t always make for a worthwhile experience with readers. I’m just saying!
Your point is right on relationships is a big part especially when trying to make money online. You first need to build a strong relationship and know your customers first. Great point.
This is so true. It is easy to lose focus when SO MANY people are marketing products in the ‘Make Money Online’ market. Things are hurled at you left and right, content is king, relationships are king… To me, quality content is a given, I can’t and won’t cut corners there. All of the relationship building in the world is worthless if your content is spammy or low quality. Well, you may have short term gains but who wants to do all of that work if you just have to turn around and start all over?
I do get lost sometimes and get a one-track mind that is focused on content. Thanks for the reminder and helping me sharpen my focus on relationships.
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I think trust is an important factor in building online relationships, when I trust a blogger I meet online I immediately will listen to what they have to say when they are recommending a product, service, or fellow blogger.
Of course, there should be a dynamic relationship between “SEO”, “content creation” and “building relationships”.
One problem is that some people sometimes forget that “building relationships” is not simply getting people to be your Facebook Friend or to “follow” (and ignore?) your tweets, but actually to communicate, speak, get to know and interact with the people who visit your site.
In the same way, if you think that “good content” is only about “SEO” you are missing the point. Good content should be unique, relevant, useful and engaging for the site visitor first of all. Often, if you get that right, the SEO will look after itself.
Good content will then set up a sound basis for you to engage personally with the real people who visit your site. Most likely, the process will begin by responding to comments, or by engaging further with visitors who sign up to your list.
David Hurley
I absolutely love that you addressed this. So many people rely on their ‘echo-chamber’ and hope that those people will somehow force a boost in viewership.
Recently I read a blog post by Single Dad Laughing that was pretty much saying content was king. As a long time [since 2001] blogger myself, I’ve only lately come to the realization that it doesn’t matter how much I post or even if the content is great. People really do not just ‘magically’ show up.
As soon as I actively pursued syndication and began really striking out on my own, I experienced a sky-rocket in views. Granted I don’t sell anything so I’m still trying to figure out monetization. But I have 10 years of proof that what you are saying is the truth.
I look forward to reading more as I only just found your blog. Feel free to check out mine as I’m currently posting about how to be a blogger on my own site: http://allisondduncan.com
I can’t stand sites that are focused exclusively on relationships. But, Chris does have a point. Traffic comes from good relationships and promotion. Content is what keeps a core audience, though. The two have to grow together.
One week someone will write an article to say that content is the most important thing, the next it’s building relationships, the next we are told it’s all down to building an email list, and then it will be back to content! It all starts to sound a little trite?
Surely a balance is required? What’s the point of getting traffic if your bounce rate is 100%? What’s the point of having fantastic posts if no one is reading them?
There are no rules in this game. My most successful site went from zero to 100k hits in the first month simply because I ranked well for one term that no one else was competing for.
I know what you mean. I think if you wrap it all into to one you are good. There should be a balance. If your content suck why would anyone want to work or be in a business relationship.
I also agree that contents are the tools to create the relations. But, if you don’t have unique content, I think people don’t want to build a good relationship with you. For me, both of them are important in an internet marketing…
Contents are the tools to create the relations and these tools display your inner self to others and finally they decide to run with you or not. I think relations are content dependent.
“I think relations are content dependent”
Yep, let’s me continue this logic – “Spam connects people” or “Spam is the way to share money with buyers and SEO-specialists”
Well done Chris! But let’s not forget that content builds relationships too. I like to think of content and relationships as equal partners. One begets one as the other begets the other. When I perform SEO for my clients, I work all the angles.
“When I perform SEO for my clients, I work all the angles”
That’s the point you missed in article
Clients also order spam farms and spam Emails
I just do not see what’s the difference between spamming and SEO-ing
that eventually results in the same – complete lost of any sense and usability of internet by humans .
The authorship is somehow blurred for me.
If we speak about (human) “Relationship is Virtue” vs. “SEO-ed Content is evil”, Chris should have been link to something more human-identifiable (personified) like Chris’s profile/bio
http://twitter.com/#!/foldberg1
but not to blog content
And, again, I am still waiting for Akismet and Google categories in this blog as well as in “Best of GrowMap” link
Sorry, precipitated, with the last sentence of prev comment –
I am now waiting them in “Best of GrowMap”
https://www.growmap.com/best-of-growmap/
webpage onlyWell, and this is also not important as this blog now has these categories
I’d prefer that last sentence and this comment be deleted
We all dream about our site becoming viral but unfortunately that rarely takes place. You are correct that you must lead rather than follow but some professions limit your ability to do so. Thank you for your cheerleading and knowledge.
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I prefer building relations with other people and then – in case of successful relationships – they will become potential clients or at least they will become interested in your work and will generate traffic.
In general I think that content AND relations are the main factors of success as well as the product that you sell or promote (we all sell something – either ourselves or our products or services).
Reading your post gives me a perception that content should not be consider as the king but as a means to build or start a relationship with the customers.
hey man,
thanks for your tip. But could you suggest to me some methods for building relationships? If you could access my site, your help would really go along way for me too. I admit that iknow nuts about SEO:(
That’s definitely true, however, you can’t really build that kind of relationships without some good content.
I’d say the way you bond to your visitors improves on the quality content already gives you.
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Visitors don’t give a shit for content or where is your website appears in searches. Don’t be fooled by google propaganda.
Human visitors are looking for fast online HUMAN support, fast finding what they are specifically looking for, fast realization of their requests by HUMANs and 3-d party discussions (blogs, comments, forum posts, etc.) by HUMANs on OTHER resources.
This is all “relationship”s.
And the latter frequently very difficult to find, especially by google searches, because google’s SERPs are filled with SEO-optimized spam farms with automatically dauly re-published malicious or distorted impersonal content. Eventually, because professional spammers using spam bots are more advanced in using SEO.
Again, SEO is oxymoron, scammed on us by google, because optimization of search engines has nothing to do with optimization of website content and the latter has nothing to do with true marketing of a product or of a service
Google scammed business to senseless counterproductive spendings of SEO gambling-guessing while it is google’s business to optimize its own google search engine but not of the users (and according to secret always changing rules)
vgv8 you got it 🙂
I just realized why this debate is so popular: because many want all answers to be either/or when in fact all truth is far more complicated than that.
Yes, you have to have quality content, BUT no amount of wonderful content will attract visitors until those visitors have some way 0f knowing it exists.
Vgv8 is correct that this whole SEO “good vs evil” nonsense works well to keep many businesses on the wrong track. Businesses need to wake up because SEO and article marketing will not save you when Google starts using Chrome block data to censor their results – and they may ALREADY be doing that.
If you haven’t read my Google posts now would be a good time to start. If you have, you may want to reread them. But most of all we must start championing alternatives while we are still getting traffic from G because that traffic could be gone in the blink of an eye.
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Grail (Growmap),
I disagree with your phrase:
“Yes, you have to have quality content, BUT no amount of wonderful content will attract visitors until those visitors have some way 0f knowing it exists”
From my rather vast experience,
even if you force potential customers to know “it”,
they still do not care (and again not about content but about “relationship”, quality, etc.) until they find 3d-party evidences, discussions, feedback, comments.
And those 3d-party non-SEO-ed evicences on other webresources most frequently do not appeared in SERPs or are out-ranked by professionally SEO-ed spam
And, again, from my experience, there are plethora of cases when SEO-ed content also dumped by search engines.
I have concrete examples and stats…
As an afterthought I’d like to correct/change my phrase
“Visitors don’t give a shit for content”
to
“Marketed Visitors don’t care much if content is SEO-ed or not”
(sorry, I wrote it fast)
I hope the meaning and sense of this phrase was understandable from context.
Still. as a potential targeted/marketed customer I do not care about content.
I care about content (but not SEO) as a reader, communicator, participant, fan and not about commercial sites marketing something
I see your point, but isn’t it on SEO when you create quality contents, Google will surely like these contents and will indexed them more faster, thus users can able to search these articles and when they have found out how good your content was they will spread the link towards you site.
may I argue with you, Chris?:D content remains king, especially now after the google panda/farmer updates… indeed, relationships are important too, but with useless content, you can’t do anything in serps
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Joe,
you argue against common sense and in support of senseless SEOwhich is oxymoron because manipulation of website content has nothing to do with optimization of search engines.
And business does not need senseless expenses on SEO, i.e. websites.
It is interested in promoting brands, products and services.
From this p.o.v., it should be glad to have articles, discussions. posts on their brans/service/product on any website, not only their own.
Read my:
But SEO promotes farms stealing original human (aka non-automatized aka manual) content by spammers using bots and farms that outrank human writings
I cannot find by google search the 99% of human posts, comments, articles, only professionally SEO-ed botted and distorted spam.
you have a good point here:D now, SEO is more about manipulating search engine results… but what can I say.. this is where we’re heading to and we have to adapt. if you try to get traffic, leaving google out of the ecuation, then there’s a big chance that you lost 80% of the possible traffic;) but still, you should write for humans, no matter what
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Hey Joe you most certainly can argue your point of view!
I would like to counter your argument by stating that useless content with strong relationships will still get seen (although the content would hurt the relationship in general) versus strong content with no relationships which would never get seen.
If you read between the lines, the real message of this article is that you should create content which helps foster relationships and rely on more than just the presence of that content to spread it.
I see your point, but isn’t it on SEO when you create quality contents, Google will surely like these contents and will indexed them more faster, thus users can able to search these articles and when they have found out how good your content was they will spread the link towards you site. That’s just my opinion.
Vins
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My argument here Vins is that quality content does not mean that you will be seen. SEO is how a robot finds an article related to a person’s search, but it is other people that the robot relies heaviest on for ranking search results. Without connections and good content being spread amongst a distribution channel, all you have is unread content!
As Fazal said traffic and content matters a lot in making a blog successful.
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Good post Chris, I’m totally aligned with what you’re saying man.
It’s funny to have watched guys like Gary Vaynerchuk talk about this years ago, and still see people catching on and talking about it now.
I just had a couple of bad experiences with a couple companies that could have been prevented if they took the relationship based bottom line approach, instead of the ROI bottom line.
Ultimately, this is right on, the emotional connection and feeing of rapport outweighs everything else. Great post.
Great Article and I think your on the money. While I’m an internet novice, I believe it is my relationships developed both in person and via the World Wide Web that took a decade plus to foster that has created what traffic I have with my real estate blog.
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I completely agree.
You can work your butt off creating great content but if it isn’t found than a lot of it goes to waste. Having relationships help you get your content (and brand) found. You begin to build a momentum once people become aware of who you are and what content you have to offer. That’s what’s king.
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I think you have introduced a great paradox in this post.
But search engines are oriented to promoting content (through promoting so-called SEO which is namely oxymoron), i.e. spammers filling web farms with stolen (re-published) content and blocking-penalizing such relationship-oriented marketing:
In other words, you will not find thousands of recent discussions of your product in SERPs, only technically advanced sites with distorte? copies of original=manual=non-automatized content.
Should it (SEO) be called wrong?
And what can be done?
All the golden tips has always been about how to bring out an interesting content, a killer content, if we really want to woo readers and make some fast money but it cannot be denied that our relationship with our reader is more important than anything else. Other than just delivering the information readers want getting connected is more vital. Some blogger exactly knows what will click and keep the readers connected and this make the loyal readers coming back for more.
I think that content and relationships should go hand in hand. If you have a blog with poor quality content will not matter much relationships that you have. Content remains king in my opinion.
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Those are some great tips. I’m not the most social, but I’m starting to figure it out online. Kind of challenging when it doesn’t come naturally, but it seems like an important part of running a business online these days.
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Hi Chris and Gail
I love networking and do believe building relationships is important. Content does need to be quality though cos even friends won’t want to read same old, same old fluff!
Gail is a great example of one who reaches out to us newbies. Learnt tons from her when I first started out and see on Twitter how she writes encouraging comments after she tweets.
I try and do the same. People appreciate being treated as individuals and to be appreciated. Trust builds up and for sure they are more likely to read information and buy products from those they know and trust than from some random site on the net.
Enjoyable read Chris. Thanks for sharing. Appreciated.
Patricia Perth Australia
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Well content is still King because it decides if people will come to visit an other time but what is more important is the marketing and how you make your blog to be perceive. For example, I am pretty sure Darren Rowse doesn’t have a connection with everyone of it’s readers but rather he had a good marketing plan and other are marketing him as a great blogger, I would say that he can even write something that is less then average, as content, and still be perceived as great.
So although you can write content to act as a way to create relations with your readers I would say that a good marketing strategy can do wanders.
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I tend to favor building relationships as opposed to just hammering out content the whole time. This is because I feel behind all the traffic are real people not just computers with blinking lights.
Building relationships takes hard work and I’m not finding it easy but obviously I must not neglect the content side.
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I have written 3 post on explaining why content is king and it will never change because the words we spoke and the text we wrote and the speech people listen to… are all content… before it comes in to relationship…
As you already wrote “If you are that cool person in the room with the answers” and guess what?
The “answer” is the content and without it do you think you can be the cool guy or gal in the party… absolutely no… right?
Just imagine you wanted that girl to become you girlfriend before you get into relationship, you need content and the content is “dating her out” and if she feels your content is no different from other guys do you think she will accept a relationship with you… absolutely no… right?
So this explain in within the connection of building relationship is all about the content that you deliver.
And when the content you deliver is good… relationship will THEN start… Now do you still think relationship is the king?
Yes but you are assuming that you must have the answers to build a relationship. You can start a relationship simply by asking questions and listening to others, then you can hammer out some content and have all the answers when it’s your turn.
Content requires a distribution channel or else no one will read it!
Well, great question. I guess all of us will have a different way of answering and debating but I tend to agree with the blog post. Relationships, relationships and oh yeah, relationships. I will say your great content pulled me in as a new reader but the warm fuzzy relationship you developed with me by listening to me and commenting me back keeps me coming back! I have found many great sites with really GREAT content but lack of relationship I soon forgot about them!
Hi App,
I totally agree that relationship makes all the difference with whether I read and comment regularly in a blog or not. When I am researching something that Darren Rowse @Problogger or Brian Clark @Copyblogger have probably written about I go to their blogs and search, but since they do not interact with me in their comments I don’t read them regularly.
Since I don’t read them regularly I only share their content when it happens across my path. That doesn’t happen often because we don’t really have any kind of relationship. I respect what they do but they aren’t on my daily radar.
Bloggers who interact with their commentators have loyal readers and build community. Those who do not lose the interest of their readers because if someone doesn’t want to listen to you, how much do you really want to listen to them?
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my personal belief is that the content is and always be the king. On page seo together with the age of the domain surpasses the linkbuilding efforts. so, yes I am always focussing on content, for both seo purposes and mostly for my readers
No. That isn’t correct. There are many sites full of quality content that no one ever sees and on page SEO is not nearly as influential for search engine position as incoming links.
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It is interesting how the internet has changed, especially for internet marketers. It used to be you could sit behind the anonymity of your computer perfectly safe and unknown, a time when privacy was king and people were protecting, or hiding behind false identities – now internet marketers are coming out of the closet and discovering it really is ok to be yourself online. It can be a challenge for those who were around when the internet started to embrace the openness of today’s internet.
The problem is without great content, it is not easy to connect with other users because they usually want to follow authorities in their industry. One has to spent a lot of time on connecting with like-minded users in order to get some people to visit ones site.
But Andreas! I am living proof that it does not take long! I had a guest post on problogger in my second month of blogging! What’s more I was making sales and building relationships in that first month.
People simply want someone who will listen to them. Ever see a new guy at a party sort of take over and be the star of the show? You can do the same thing online.
Chris is correct, Andreas,
It isn’t hard to connect with others online if you know how to do it and meet any one person who can introduce you to others. All that takes is to connect with bloggers by commenting in their blogs or sharing their content or reviewing them online.
CommentLuv makes that really easy to do. How is explained in the post I’ll link to this reply.
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This is because google wants to provide content that people (through links) recommend. You’re recommending links with social media and as long as people are going to them your rankings will improve.
It’s a toughie, bit of a catch 22 I guess. You could have the most well written, informative content known to man but if people aren’t finding it, what’s the point?
Thus getting found through Google et al and building relationships (posting on blogs, communities, social media etc) is vital to achieve the much needed exposure!
Hi SEJ,
Your comment is exactly what I would say: it won’t matter if you have the best site ever created if no one ever sees it. Yes, you have to have quality content to get them to come back, but without promotion and relationships all the quality content in the world will do nothing for you.
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After all, the content is out on a blog to encourage relations, to have feedback, Retweets, Stumbles, Diggs and whanot.
A blog without any kind of user interaction is a dead blog, don’t you have the same feeling when you visit one of them?
When everything you do is finalized to relations, it’s easy to understand “content” is merely a mean towards that.
Hi Chris,
This is a fabulous post, I mean really fabulous. The blogs I follow and hold in a very high regard are those that reached out to me. I spent lots of time lurking, feeling as though I had nothing to add. Very upsetting and intimidating, which is out of my natural character. I’m very outgoing, can talk to anyone about anything. Tia @BizChickBlogs, Ileane @BasicBlogTips and of course Gail changed my outlook . They broke the lurking barrier for me and I have the utmost respect for each of these ladies.
Have a great weekend!
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Great article chris. Really got me thinking.
I’ve found that when I build relationships online rather than write content no one reads, not only is business better, but I’m happier having made the contacts.
Definitely. It’s how I get my guest post gigs and get people to guest post on my blog.
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The bloggers I respect most are the ones that are the most personable and accessible (just like Ana Hoffman who RT about this). I value each relationship made and think very highly of those I “meet”. I think about these individuals, reflect upon what they’ve written, and wish them well; just like my live-in-person relationships. Amazing times we live in. Thank so much for this thoughtful article – you have it right! With kindness, Elena
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That style of marketing is dead and not a moment too soon. This post touches on an emotional topic. Relationships. It is great to know other people, such as your self, focus on real social engagement, not “tactics” to sell stuff.
It took me about year to finally “get” Twitter, but now that I do (of think I do) it makes on line social media conversations that much better.
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It took me a while to realize sharing great content on Twitter wasn’t what really works best – interacting with people is. Even today I tend to share and RT too much and interact not enough but I am working on it.
Relationships are key to everything but so many of us aren’t very good at them – especially many of us called to blog – because we are so different than the people around us.
Have you seen the tips and strategies in my Twitter Best Practices post? What I’ve learned over the past three years is all in there.
Joseph, my Small Business Internet Marketing post has information in that will be useful to you – especially the section on getting free advertising from Local Search Directories. See the Local Case Study I put in CommentLuv in this reply to see one example of how it worked.
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I have to say your spot on in this post. Great content itself is a waste if it’s not reaching the audience. But I think its really hard to get noticed today as “everybody” is on the social medias screaming:listen to me
Hi Bjorn, Chris,
The real key is to take the blogging and social media skills we have learned and create geo-targeted niche blogs. Why and how at that link.
Bloggers need to find a niche in a specific geographic location and build a community around that niche so that they can be the best blog for a very specific audience. They will then attract advertising and content from businesses interested in reaching that audience.
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Bravo, Chris. Well said. This points out something so obvious and basic yet most of us seem to forget. Thank you for saying it in such a clear and compelling manner.
Interestingly enough, it is my relationship with two remarkable ladies, Gail & Michele, that let me know this post was here. The title so intrigued me that I clicked right over; so glad I did.
Best wishes for a spectacular day. Off to spread the word. Aloha. Jaent