For online marketers, content is the backbone of any operation. From search-powered pay-per-click advertising to pure organic rankings, content fuels traffic, builds online empires, and helps you increase sales and total revenue. The feature article was once disregarded by marketers and online entrepreneurs, but with today’s leading search engines highlighting the importance of content above anything else, more marketers are investing in high quality content to fuel their business.
It is amazing then, that so many marketers choose to host their content on platforms that are out of their control, advertise products that they have no influence over, and create an income that is – at the snap of someone else’s fingers – entirely removable. The most secure online content is that created for your own online properties, especially those that have the potential to grow.
Not convinced? Content is the future of online marketing, and it is one of the few elements that can likely never be automated, optimized, or entirely outsourced. These three reasons to build content for yourself may not convince you to switch everything to internal platforms, but they should serve as a reason to take more control, exert more influence over, and tightly protect your own content.
Copyright law is complex, except when you keep your property.
The internet has certainly thrown a few arguments the way of copyright lawyers. While final rulings are few and landmark decisions are relatively rare, the overwhelming majority of internet copyright cases end up failing to go to court, instead siding in the direction of the party controlling the server.
That means that every piece of content you have hosted externally – be it on a forum, article directory, or social website – may not belong to you. Terms and conditions can be tricky, often as much so as the law, but one thing is clear: hosted content just is not secure.
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Owned content is stable content.
The world’s greatest entrepreneurs discovered one thing early in life: that owned investments were worth much more than those controlled by someone else. From 50 Cent’s ghetto empire to J.D. Rockefeller own expansive commercial businesses, the world’s most profitable and lasting businesses were built on owned resources.
Do the same with your content. Own it, control it, and monetize it independently. Should things go wrong, you will have an opportunity to recover. Should things go right, you will be swimming in potential income.
Hosted content is short-term; owned content has growth potential.
Much like service businesses eventually expand into creating products, the world’s most effective marketers turn resources once external to them into highly profitable internal resources. By hosting your content externally, you remove the chance to do just that.
Build content as a long-term investment, not as an instant income platform, and you will continue to benefit in the future. The flurry of marketers aiming to capitalize in the short term fail to realize that there is much more money available further down the line, namely in the exact spot you could be standing.