During our Content Creation Workshop with Jeff Herring, I made the comment that any blog post I write is worth a minimum of $250. That deserves a little explanation.

$250 is my rate to write a featured editorial, also known as a sponsored blog post, across any of my blogs.

Why? Because I earn at least that much on my own posts.

It was only very recently that I tested selling advertising of any kind - on any of my sites & blogs. As an affiliate marketer, I've always valued the space far more for myself than the rates most advertisers were willing to pay. That said, I enjoy testing a variety of methods to monetize my blogs, and ad sales was one I had not yet tested.

The main point I want to discuss today though, is the value of your content. Do you have a specific dollar amount that you would place on each article or blog post that you write? My "$250" is a bare minimum, and I'll explain why...

How To Make Money Writing Content

Obviously you can make money writing content for other people, as a service.

And you can make money writing sponsored blog posts or paid features.

But how does your own content make money? And how can you increase the value of your content, so that every article or blog post earns you even more money?

Simple!

You include a "Call-to-Action" in every single post.

Basically, that means you give your reader the "next best click." You should know what your call-to-action will be before you ever start writing the content.

It's called having an Objective. Without a clear objective, it's really hit or miss.

Call-to-Action Examples

This post on my low carb blog is not a "product review" but rather a conversational post about a product: Zumba Workout DVD. I talk about my decision to purchase it, where I ordered it, and invited them to check it out on Amazon and join in as well.

Here's a similar post about Discount Restaurant Gift Certificates Online, which is conversational - but has a very clear call to action: "Click here to browse around the site and see which Restaurants are listed near you."

Another example, from here at ClickNewz, is a post where I am promoting my own product: How to Choose a Domain Name. In addition to selling a product, with a very clear objective and call-to-action, you'll notice a text link in the third paragraph. I charge $150 for that type of contextual advertising.

The Long Term Value of Content

The great thing about web content is that you write it once, and it continues to work for you... forever! It doesn't matter if it takes you 30 minutes or three hours to write an article or a blog post. Once it's done, it's done!

To give you another example, my post about Online Jobs: Work From Home ranks very well for that term (which is a searched keyword phrase). I wrote that post over a year ago, yet it ranks in the Top 3 at Google for "online jobs work from home" on my end (yes, logged OUT of Google).

In addition to top rankings that continue to bring in traffic and sales over and over again - for YEARS even! - there are ways to repurpose your content.

You can change it to a different format (audio, PDF, video, etc) to reach even more people. You can turn a series of articles or posts into an e-course to build a targeted mailing list. You can combine related posts and articles into a Kindle book or short report that you can sell online. There are lots of possibilities!

After You Write Web Content...

What do you do after you publish a new article or blog post? Perhaps you share it via social media, and it goes out to your Feed subscribers and email list. But what else?

Don't just sling it out there and then move on to the next piece of content, never giving the already-published content a second thought!

Put your best posts in your blog's sidebar as "Featured Topics," or better yet put your best review posts in the sidebar under "Featured Reviews" or "Featured Products."

Refer back to archived blog posts contextually in new posts you write - which you can see I've done in THIS post. This gives those important posts on your blog more internal links and more weight, as well as more exposure to your readers.

Get external links to your best archived posts, too! The two easiest ways to do this are Guest Blogging and Article Marketing. The more internal and external links you have pointing to those archives, the better (and longer!) they will rank well in the major search engines.

You can also repurpose your archived posts into free downloads, rewrite them a bit and use them for Article Marketing, or group related posts together like I mentioned above and publish them as an ebook or on Kindle.

The Value of YOUR Content

If you're just starting out with a blog, or with content marketing for your website, the value of your content may seem very low at the moment. That's okay! Building a strong online business takes a substantial investment of time and energy.

I've been blogging for eight full years now, so when I throw out the number $250 - it's definitely on the low end. Especially considering the long-term revenue, which will continue to come in for... infinity? LOL, who knows!

Just keep in mind that content is VERY valuable, and once you publish that content it will remain online and continue working for you for years to come.

On that note, let me ask you a question...

Would you invest 30 minutes of your time for $300? What about three hours for $300? (I would! All day every day!) And keep in mind that $300 is a guaranteed bare minimum, and your time investment may just have a $3,000 return! But would you still invest the time just for the minimum? Of course!

That minimum return may come all at once on more established blogs, or it may be spread out over a year or two on less established blogs.

And of course there are things you can do (um, known as "marketing") to see your ROI faster - or to increase it dramatically.

Let's say you do have a blog post in your archives that is consistently making $300/year. It's a post you published a year ago or more, and you haven't even so much as looked at it since. Should you just let it hum along consistently earning it's minimum every year? You could. Or you could revisit that post and determine how you could increase the traffic and conversions, and multiply that revenue.

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I hope this discussion has inspired you, or given you some things to consider when it comes to marketing and monetizing your content.

Leave a comment below - I would love to hear your thoughts!

Best,

p.s. Did you know that you can get an article or blog post written for you for as little as $3.00 through Jiffy Articles? They also have thousands of Content Templates that make content writing a breeze!

See article writing and blog content for screenshots and examples.

I use and LOVE Jiffy Articles. And this week, until Midnight Friday August 31st, you can get lifetime access to the templates and article writing service for only $47. See: http://www.jiffyarticlespecial.com It's normally $127 per year, so it's a no-brainer!