Work Now, Gain Later

Results don't come easy, and they definitely don't come quickly; We'll focus on the latter for the sake of this article. Content marketing has always seen a delay in terms of traffic generated as a direct consequence of adding text to your site. It was the case back in the day when competition in virtually all niches was scarce, and it is naturally today.

Visitors do eventually find your content (through a search engine, a friend's simple like, a share from a notable personality they might be following), and the possibilities are endless. Because of this, they're not measurable. And for the same reason, for every article you write, you're venturing into the unknown. For many online authors, Internet marketers, or anyone looking to promote their services across the Web... this has an effect of stopping creativity in its tracks. Instead of informing our target audience, we seek out a quick fix that unfortunately doesn't exist (at least not without a significant financial investment).

To understand why delivering great content does not equal short-term income, we need to grasp the concept of free, and how giving something of value away is good karma. Things find their way back to their origin, this is a given. Just like cash flow in a healthy economy, effort is also returned to you (often in the form of money). A potential buyer will see what you put out, love it (hopefully), and feel the need to purchase from you; Not because you were nice to him or her, but because you provided them with a solution to their problem.

If we take a minute to think about it, it becomes clear that nothing leads to instant achievement... nothing except the satisfaction of knowing that you will help someone through your actions (should that be your intention). Great articles (along with audios, videos, and other media) need to be created without the guarantee of receiving some form of payment - therefore, to keep them on par with what your ideal visitor would expect from a top-performing website/business/organization, you should put yourself in their shoes.

Large corporations rise to insane heights without their customer's best interest at heart; They do it because they are aware of and utilize the formula that allows them to profit. They give away tons of free stuff with a calculated assessment of the returns they should experience (based on previous sales and marketing campaigns). And since there is no certainty as we've already mentioned (and not overlooking the fact that these institutions are not genuine in their attempts to please their customers in the longterm), even the biggest of companies hit a peak at some stage of the game.

This particular article (and this website for that matter) is for small-to-medium-sized businesses and organizations (including home-based business owenrs, service sellers and other freelancers). It's not for the big boys with big budgets. Mom-and-pop is becoming cool again because people more than ever want something genuine from individuals who've experienced the same frustrations as them. They want you to say "Hi!" from time to time and they want it to be real. On the Internet, this is called content marketing done right.