Opinion: how-to's waste of time?
So I'm writing an article now about the necessity of learning a new language if you practice in a business setting in the United States, obviously going into detail about how Chinese should be this language you learn.
When it occured to me that people come to webites to find solutions to answers, and our job is to monetize that process. Well my question is:
Is it worth it to spend hours writing a how-to article for someone who is just using your website for free?
Anyone have opinions on this? Because I have a string of how-to articles I can write, but I don't see the point if I'm not going to make any money off of it, you know?
If you write these articles, doyou really get these people to buy later on by joining your email list? I've never seen too much data showing this correlation.
Wondering because I want to focus on what to center my articles around for the next month. I want to focus them on bringing people in who, simply put, want to spend money on language learning.
It's not that I don't want to help people, I do. But how long should you go on with giving away free stuff before writing specifically to draw in serious buyers?
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You have put so much work into your website, it is very impressive! I agree with Phil below, use your how-to's to enrol more subscribers and produce an attractive how-to book series, the first one for free and then paid ones after..
can you not produce these as a pdf in exchange for the email address?use them as a lead magnet -in your sales funnel
going to a thank you page where they are offered a low cost item - another pdf of the first 50 words they can learn- once you have them paying a nominal price you will have an easier task of getting them to pay more in the future. you have customers then, having successfully carried out two transactions!
nothing is free - you always want a call to action or information exchange - comment, e-mail address or other.
have fun
phil
Thanks Phil. This is the exciting part actually, I love learning about this type of marketing game.
And I have a list of about 25 subscribers so it's good to know they are interested.
The challenge is finding a way to make a profit without asking too much and pushing everyone away.
I don't know if you guys could have answered my question any better! Truly, you get the value you put out into the world don't you?
I just revisited your site Ryan . You have definitely put a lot of work in it since my last visit. You might go to google trends and search the subject of your how to's and see what comes up. See if people are searching for information on your topics
Hi Ryan, Great question!
I don’t have any direct experience with How-To’s but I’ve just started a new website and I’ve been planning to have a category of How-To articles. I’m also planning to have a category of articles on Frequently Asked Questions. In my niche, I see a lot of search traffic opportunities to obtain readers for How-To’s and specific questions.
From my perspective, I think How-To’s could potentially work to bring people to the site which could potentially spend money. In my niche, I think there will be a lot of opportunities in my How-To and FAQ articles to reference to product reviews and affiliate-based applications/services in my article and it’s call-to-action. My expectation is that if I can get people reading the How-To and FAQs I write, that at least some percentage of them will look at the links in my call-to-action.
As I’m just starting this website, I don’t have any specific data as to how well such How-To users will convert to sales. I’m also interested to hear what others have to say about their experiences.
-Dave
I think you are really on to something there, Dave. Best wishes with your new site :)
Ryan, yes, you get out of something what you put into it. Always keep the customer in mind and I believe that a how to is a great way of doing just that.
I think it is worth writing about whatever you think you should write about. Shows you as an authority figure. One that people can respect and look to for answers. Eventually you gain the trust of those people and your business grows.
Write them Ryan. I don't know your plan for monetizing your site I will take a look. No matter how you are monetizing it you need to attract visitors.
I think we all want to get that elusive member of our list who buys and then repeat that process until we have a viable business.
To that end we need to decide what we need to do to get there, it may be writing a heap of how to's or not it is up to you, it is your business.
From what I can see it takes a lot of writing, communicating, blogging and just getting yourself out there to make it work.
Good luck
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How to brochures or short lead generators are GREAT lead-ins for your message. Lead gen is a great sales enterprise. What seems like a waste of time will pay odd down the line.
Yeah as I'm starting to see all the big websites that really drive a lot of traffic, they offer quite a bit of free stuff up front.
I'm going to make a "speak in a week" course to really help people get started learning.