[Cheat Sheet] 20 Questions for Content Creation
Use this easy "cheat sheet" to generate 20 instant pieces of quality content that can start helping you gain traffic and influence in your market in just a few hours.
At StomperNet, we teach that "Content is King." You need content to post on your own website to serve as spider food and link bait. You need content for your blogs and email lists to keep your readers engaged.
We've said previously that with the advent of Web 2.0, you will run out of content before you run out of places to post it. But that certainly doesn't mean you shouldn't try to create and post as much content as possible.
The more, the better - and the faster you can create content and deploy it, the faster you'll start seeing increased traffic AND sales.
In Volume 1, Issue 3 of "The Net Effect", Mike Koenigs shared a video creation and distribution strategy he calls the "10 x 10 x 4 Formula". But this report ISN'T about video.
In this edition of your StomperNet "Cheat Sheets", I'm going to borrow the "10 x 10″ part of Mike's video process and show you how you can use it to help you create any kind of promotional content, practically any time you feel like it.
But it's more than that. If you complete the exercise below, you will:
1. Gain valuable insight into your market's "hot buttons" by doing some fast and easy research.
2. Build more rapport with your existing customers by using feedback loops.
3. Generate 20 pieces of "stealth" marketing content that you can deploy as video, blog posts, emails, articles, WHATEVER.
4. When you post this content on YOUR site, you get the benefits of PageRank boosting search spider food. More content = more pages in the index = more organic traffic.
5. When you spread this content all around the social spaces, you have nearly infinite opportunities to create context-specific backlinks back to your money sites.
Basically, there is NO downside to completing this exercise and publishing the content it creates for you. Your prospects get great content that actually helps them, and at the same time, everything they read will make them want to buy your stuff. 
So let's get started.
The FIRST 10 – FAQs on Steroids
In this part of Mike's process, he asks you to write down the top 10 most frequently asked questions that your visitors have about your product or service.
This is where you're going to do the research I mentioned earlier. Now – NO CHEATING! Legwork is required here, no 'putting on your customer hat' and guessing.
The point of the exercise is not to test your imagination, but for you to actually gain some "market intelligence" by simply looking around to see what your prospects are looking for.
If you're doing a good job with your online marketing, this should be as easy as looking to your own resources: blog comments, emails from visitors, customer service logs, etc.
In Mike's original article, he included a case study from a client who followed his formula. She is an business survey expert, and these are some of the questions she came up with:
1. What questions should I ask in a survey?
2. How do I do market research with a survey?
3. What is the best software to use for surveys?
Being a business survey expert, I'll let you guess how Mike's client collected these questions… Yes! She surveyed her own prospect and customer lists to find out what they wanted to know about making money with surveys.
Being proactive like she was is just one more way you can use your own resources to generate these questions.
Some of you won't be able to use those options though. That's okay.
If you DON'T currently have at LEAST one contact method where your prospects and customers can submit their questions to you, stop reading this RIGHT NOW and go set that up.
I'll wait.
Even if you are just setting up a "feedback loop" like this now, you DON'T have to wait to do this research. You can still get some good info elsewhere online.
Some obvious places to look for customer questions:
- Yahoo! Answers and other Q&A sites are a great place to look, DUH.
- Forums related to your market will contain a treasure trove of valuable info for you. Find the threads that the newbies start over and over, and the veterans complain about. Those are instant "FAQs" for you.
- Comments from blogs that service your market are the next best thing if you can't use your own. This is one of those ways you can make your competitors useful.
- If you're marketing a physical product sold by other vendors, look to reviews that have been written and "reverse engineer" them. A good review is designed to answer the reader's questions about the product, and that answer material is what we're really after.
That's the next step. After you have your list of 10 questions, answer them. Do a good job. Be thorough. Good copywriting helps here, but as long as you're actually answering the questions, it WILL work.
Once you have those answers, you've already got 10 valuable pieces of content to distribute. Since this content actually answers REAL questions that the market has, you're going to capture attention a LOT more easily.
Here's how. Once you publish this content, whether in video form or as a blog post, go back and revisit all the places where you found the QUESTION. Link back to your answer.
Simple, no?
Every social site you post this content to should link back to your money-making sites, too. After all, your content WILL help people and they WILL want to know more. Help them find you.
Now, like I said, these 10 pieces of content will be good for GETTING ATTENTION, but that's not enough. We also want to create some content that will actually draw your visitors in and bring them closer to buying your stuff.
But before they'll BUY, they have to WANT IT. Here's how you can "implant" that desire in them, totally under the radar. Don't freak out. It seems like mind-control, but it's only good marketing.
The NEXT 10 – Opinion Implant
The next part of Mike's process is to write down the top 10 questions your visitors SHOULD be asking about your product or service.
What would they ask "if ONLY they knew ________".
While the first "10″ we did was mostly research, this is much more of a brainstorming exercise. Your focus should be on generating questions that would allow you to answer by talking about the specific benefits of YOUR solutions.
You might find it helpful to start with a list of your best benefits and start thinking up questions from there. Try to come up with the kind of question a prospect would actually ask.
It can be very tempting, but you want to avoid creating "loaded" questions.
"Why is your product so much awesomer than everything else, ever?"
Ha ha! Funny! BUT…
That's not a very realistic question for a visitor to ask, and it won't work as well as a more genuine one.
That's why I wanted you to do the research part BEFORE this part – I find it gives you a better idea of what the prospects might actually ask.
If you don't really know what your best benefits are, try this little "bonus" exercise. Ask yourself "Why should anyone buy from me instead of my competitor?"
Write down as many answers as you can. Everything you write will be a point of differentiation to make you distinct from your competitors, and most of those will also be customer benefits as well.
Once you've got your questions, do the same thing as before. Write out thorough, detailed answers – but DON'T SELL. Just talk about your benefits as they relate to the answer.
To give you an example, I'll crib again from Mike's original article. These are some good ones from Mike's survey expert client case study.
1. How do I use surveys to increase click-throughs and conversions?
2. How can I create surveys that can make me money?
3. How can surveys help me survive a recession?
I like those examples in particular, because they are REALISTIC. They answer "what would a prospect ask, if only they knew?"
You can also see how answering these questions would allow Mike's client to really detail the benefits of her particular solution, but do it without making a pitch. She's just answering a question.
Now here's the real MAGIC of this exercise. Now that you have 10 REAL Questions, and 10 Imaginary Questions, you mix them together before releasing them.
Your benefit answers were already pretty stealthy at selling-without-selling. But by mixing them in with REAL questions, your interested prospects will automatically consume those answers without thinking twice.
By mixing them together, you can create the mental illusion that those questions they SHOULD be asking were actually their own idea. And this means that the answer and benefit you provide is going to implant DESIRE.
And that desire means we get PAID.
And now that we've reached the end of this "Cheat Sheet" let's review.
You've done some basic market research into the desires and needs of your potential customers, and you're answering those questions to capture their attention.
You're generating goodwill with your existing audience because when they ask you questions, you respond with answers they can use. These feedback loops draw your audience closer to you and it couldn't be easier to create this "conversation".
You've got 20 pieces of stealth-marketing content that you can execute in any medium you want, and no matter which you choose, you'll get more attention, and hook more prospects into buyers.
I hope you find the exercises in this "Cheat Sheet" useful AND profitable. But for that to happen, you need to go DO IT!
Until Next Time,
Keep Stomping!
~Andy Jenkins and the
StomperNet Faculty and Staff
P.S. The "10 x 10″ part of the exercise above is borrowed from StomperNet Faculty Mike Koenig's article "The 10×10x4 Formula: A Magical Traffic Magnet System that Attracts Customers Like CRAZY to Any Website (And Takes Less Than a Day to Make)". WHEW!
That article has Mike's complete process, not just the bits I told you about above. And it's only one of over a dozen articles in "The Net Effect" Volume 1, Issue 3. We call it our "What Meltdown?!" Issue, and you can see the full table of contents and get INSTANT ACCESS here:
Learn More About This Issue of "The Net Effect"
"The Net Effect" isn't just a trade newsletter or thinly veiled product catalog – this is a REAL periodical, with exclusive content provided by some of the best minds in the internet marketing field.
You owe it to yourself to check it out – your business and your bottom line will BOTH thank you!
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Thank you for these tips, just now have finished creating my own custom theme for design and want to begin the content creation question. So you are right on time.
Content creation is the real art, every site depends on how is composed and how is managed its content. And if you don't know the simple rules of content creation you should learn it as fast as possible.
It is a really nice article; personally i like this article very much. I'll post a link to you in my blog.
My opinion is, content marketing can be very effective when used wisely. Content is a great way to go beyond a customers needs and provide them with useful information they may have otherwise not known.
Yes these are useful questions ,there is no any unwanted questions.From this such questions and answers we can learn more.
I know this is an old post, but i stumbled on it while searching google for some tips on content creation, and im glad to say this article is still as relevant as ever. Good stuff!
Fresh content and valuable resources are always important. If your site is about schooling in the nursing field, I have found that listing schools is key.
If you go for volume you have a lot more chance of being found. So as far as content goes I would tell anyone who is considering just putting up a little content that they will probably have to spend more time marketing through social means rather than getting natural traffic through search engines.
Very well done article. Content creation has always been a weak point for me.
Great article on content creation! If the rest of stompernet is this good Im gonna have to sign up.
Worth the read!!
thanks for expert article =)
Otomasyon
Selim
you can't give what you don't have. so you have to be full of something so that your readers won't go away. it's just plain and simple. so you need to do the necessary means to make it the best.
Thanks for the valuable information. When looking for the topic and the content of your blog, you should consider your potential customers. Isn't it also important that you consider the things that you are passionate about?
Articles are king on the net. I've been using articles to drive traffic to what I consider my core business. It's nice to get some direction instead of my current approach of trying to just create content.
It was a really nice article; personally i liked this article very much. Being a computer geek, creative writing is not my forte. But after reading this I have a good starting point for getting more valuable content on my site that will hopefully put desire into potential customers to contact me for their computer repairs. This will also help me to create more interest in some of the products I market as an affiliate, particularly Antivirus products. Greets to you guys, keep on publish these type question to me, did you got it?
Great post you have produce nice blog here thanks for that. And As simple as it sounds I had never considered using yahoo answers as a resource like that. We normally write content based on what we are actually hearing directly from our customers mouths, emails, etc. But I am beginning to think that possibly what they are asking us might be influenced by our marketing process. i think this is my everlasting blog so.
Thank you these are really great ideas to optimize creativity at creation of content, almost like a good supplement.
"We've said previously that with the advent of Web 2.0, you will run out of content before you run out of places to post it."
You're right! There are many sites nowadays that host websites and blogs for free. It seems that we're not running out of them. But what we're really looking for is new, highly informative, accurate, and relevant content. And this is something that gets scarcer and scarcer.
Im a Formula5 buyer and a Stompernet member and I also buy The Net Effect magazine every month! I love Stomper and will till the day I die!
I wish I could push the free line like you do Andy, I love it!
Thomas
I just get morte and more information on how to get more content creation.Thanks I have to take action tonight . Create my FAQ with answer i can't just thinking about this new concept . Wow
thanks again
Eric
This content is amazing one. It has a great idea. All your ideas are really great. These ideas are very simple and real. I really learn some idea from this post. I really appreciate you. Not only for me this blog will helpful for everyone, especially blog contents. Thank you for sharing this very nice and useful blog
Thank you for your great post.. That post was really amazing containing lot of tips and suggestion to post the good blog.. Really that your post will help the many people how to write the blog contents.. If you decide to write something seriously then there is no limits for content…
most awesome article which i found from this site .As always a fantastic post and a article worth bookmarking and re reading. Developing content can really be a challenge, so it is crucial to always remember your audience. When I have a mind blank or am just thinking about the conceptual layout, I mentally think of my reader and try to write to meet their interest and need.great stuff.
What a godsend you guys are! When I first started my main website, content creation was easy. I did my keyword research, created my target keyword phrases, and developed content.
Well, I hit a wall! I've been burned out trying to come up with ideas, going around in circles.
Well, duh! why not ask the people who are visiting the site 'why' they are visiting???
You made a big light-bulb moment for me. Thank you!
Ricky
This has given me wonderful ideas for more content creation. Thank you. I'm going to take it one step further – create one FAQ with short answers then expand this to 10 articles, one per question with long answers. (Thanks Jeff Herring!) Add in the second 'imaginary' set of questions, I'll end up with 22 articles.
Kathy
very well written, great stuff and great job. double thumbs up.It is very good idea to generate the content of our site. I really appreciate you. It was really amazing one. It was original article…..great stuff.
Selling without pushing the consumer has always been the approach that we have had in our sales process. sure we could have made it a hard sales but in the long run, we have had repeat customer, which is great.
I was able to go onto yahoo answers and find some great questions about my products. This article has great ideas on brainstorming for content creation. thanks
I wish I had more time to read everything you send! I have been working on my wedding jewelry site and have seen lots of improvement in many of my main keywords. Pearl Wedding Jewelry and fashion jewelry went from 37-50 in google to position #3-5. If you work hard and do what Andy says you too will be at the top of the search engines.
u have to get ur foot moving someway, or some how to make dreams come true. I was daydreaming with ideas for my site before I finally got the ball rolling one Sunday afternoon.
Thank you very much for the this. I have been busy writing content and this help in my task.
Nice post….Excellent question tips…It is really helpful for the visitors who become customers…It is the attractive way for marketing…Great stuff about the fast growing information..Thanks for sharing the information…
A great post with some really useful information. I am currently in the process of implementing these tactics and am looking forward to the results.
Survey monkey http://www.surveymonkey.com is a great tool for creating online surveys.
Thanks for a great and insightful post.
As always a fantastic post and a article worth bookmarking and re reading. Developing content can really be a challenge, so it is crucial to always remember your audience. When I have a mind blank or am just thinking about the conceptual layout, I mentally think of my reader and try to write to meet their interest and need.
Cheers!
Jeromy
I particularly like Ask.com for doing the research part. There's a good aggregate of questions and answers there.
I'm getting my Q & A together right now thanks
Great article. Thanks Stomper Guys! The only problem I ran into was when I got to Yahoo! Answers I kept answering questions… with links back to my money pages.
Steve Juth – thanks for the share that looks like a cool tool.
Andy – thanks to you too. This cheat sheet sounds to similar to 'uncovery' and 'resolving doors' sections I've read in a marketing book. But this sure is much simpler to understand and easier to implement. This is the cheat sheet, imagine the detail in the full article!
Here's a very useful (and free!) tool for getting into your customers' heads:
http://www.keywordsmash.com
Enter a search term, click the discussions link, select the sites you want to open, then press search. Watch the Getting Started video if you need any help.
You can also view the trends tools to see what people are blogging/tweeting about. (Click the spikes in the blogpulse or twitter trends graphs to view entries for that date/time).
Steve
This is very good. I mean selling without pushing your products. I am imagining how this effect (internet marketing) is going to affect the way we think of everything we do in business. Just providing information and then sliding in your product's benefit ,wow, the best way to sell and get happy customers.
Andy, once again, a great article. In our niche, which is very narrow (home Canine Parvovirus treatment), it seems like we have to find ways to regurgitate the same basic content over and over, so this cheat sheet will maybe give us a few new areas to explore. (As well as checking our web logs for actual search terms, of course.)
I really liked this article, but what should I write if I am doing marketing for example for a commercial cleaning company? The potential clients are car dealers, office buildings, fitness centers and etc… I don’t think that they are interested about how to have their facilities cleaner; they just want to pay someone to have the job done. What I want to say is that for some business it is just hard to see that the potential clients will be interested to see their blogs, twitter, newsletters and etc… What would you do on these cases?
PS: Sorry I think that I posted this question on your social media article too, but I think that this question is applicable for both articles
This is a very helpful material for writing content. Thank you.
Hi Andy,
While I'm a big believer in the whole "Content is King" notion, I've found that 'content for the sake of content' doesn't always bring the desired results.
I used to query my list with things like "What's your (biggest concern, most pressing issue, biggest question), etc. Similar to what you've said.
I think I'm going to give Survey Monkey a try using their free trial.
Thanks for all the thought-provoking stuff – again!!!
Kimberly
This is great stuff. As simple as it sounds I had never considered using yahoo answers as a resource like that. We normally write content based on what we are actually hearing directly from our customers mouths, emails, etc. But I am begininng to think that possiblly what they are asking us might be influenced by our marketing process. Like we are loading them with the questions they might not have had if they had not talked to us first.
great food for thought guys! I am off to implement some of these ideas now!
I really like the fact that every time I read one of these cheat sheets – I am inspired to do more.
Thank you.
Thanks for the tip! These cheat sheets are so helpful. This exercise is great, I can't wait to put it to use.
This is a great spin on Mike's formula. I'm a Traffic Geyser member so I've used it with video. Thanks for waking me up and showing me this road to more traffic for my Web 2.0 campaigns. You guys rule!
I like the way your information is newbie friendly and can be used immediately. Thanks for impressing the fact that 'work' is required. Too many articles imply that it's easy and one can get it all done with little or no work.
Great but how do I research what someone would want to know about a holiday home that isn't altogether obvious? I mean everyone wants to have a comfortable stay, clean linen, 5 star bed and clean and tidy.
Anyone with clues here would be helpful?
Thanks,
Greg
Awesome insights, guys.
It's a massive thing to answer the things they want to know, and then also tell them the things they *should* know. Builds trust in a huge way. You go from "obnoxious salesperson" to "trusted friend and advisor" and it gets them buying quicker than teenage girls buying tickets for a Jonas Bros concert.
The peeps over at traffic geyser teach a similar thing, called the 10×10x4 method, and they use it as a system of getting traffic via videos. well worth a look.
They call it the 10×10x4 market domination method, and It works bigtime.
Combine that with the stomper info and you've got your market in the palm of your hand
Thanks!
Yep – as I said in the article, the full 10×10x4 method is something Mike (founder of Traffic Geyser) shared in the full issue of the magazine. That's who I "borrowed" part of the formula from. It IS well worth checking out.
Thank you, as well as for previous one on Google PageRank!
Being a computer geek, creative writing is not my forte. But after reading this I have a good starting point for getting more valuable content on my site that will hopefully put desire into potential customers to contact me for their computer repairs. This will also help me to create more interest in some of the products I market as an affiliate, particularly Antivirus products. Soon, I'll be able to afford the more in depth content Stompernet had to offer.
Thanks so much!!
Very good explanation Andy. Thanks for the share.
I am a huge fan of the Stomper! I actually have the 1st magazine edition sitting on my desk, I think its time to skim over that again. Keep up the great work!
There's another HUGE benefit to FAQs – SEO keywords. FAQs can answer keyword-rich questions, even if those keywords are not suitable for the *rest* of your web site. A client selling high-end travel realised that while it was the CEO that travelled, their PA actually researched and booked the travel – and that PAs used a whole different set of search terms! I popped those terms into a "PA-friendly FAQ" section that the CEO would never read, so the site's tone remained "CEO" but we caught PA traffic! Also useful for negative keywords too: "Q. Do you sell X brand widgets? A. No, we sell Y brand widgets because…" I love Stompernet's stuff because it's concise, attainable and understandable; what more can you ask!
What does it cost to get a subscription ?
Nice bit of info. Will try them.
Great article, thanks guys. I particularly found the FAQs on steroids part helpful. Cheers.
Ah brillant as usual! So I guess I should start with the questions I get when I had out quotes – if I include these then I can stop repeating myself ha ha ha yeah right lol but they would be a good source to start with and if I look at the comments I have received about my work from clients and reverse them I will find more questions to answer then the blog then twitter ah yes set for a busy day I think! Thanks guys look forward to future cheat sheet just give me time to complete this one lol
Great and useful information, great stuff!
When you know what questions your customers are looking for the answers to, coming up with content is EZ! And when your content answers their questions, getting more of YOU ie. the product you sell, should be the next logical conclusion. Thanks for the creating that little mini-blueprint there!
I read Mike's original article in the Net Effect and didn't think of taking the concept as the basis of creating content for posts. Sheer brilliance. Thanks Andy.
Articles are such a large part of our business. We make sure that we come up with at least one good piece of content, every day for each website. The hardest part is that we keep adding new websites LOL
As always, -Your- content is awesome.
Sometime we get into autopilot and need little reminders who we're doing this for.
(filling other peoples desires)
Thanks
There are some really good ideas here. Thanks a lot for putting this together.
Adding Fresh Content is always welcomed by Search Engines. Simple and realistic ideas to generate ongoing content for our site and for those of our clients too. Certainly look forward to making it a part of our SEO strategy.
Great info once again guys. Keep plugging away.
Dr. dave Hale
The Internet Marketing Professor
http://www.drdavehaleonline.com
I don't have problem with the article writing and I'm still using it as a marketing tool 'til now.
The problem I'm facing right now, when I'm emailing to all my subscribers and asking them, I got less feedback. Do I have to switch it to Yahoo! Answers rather than emailing to my subscribers?
All good writing is based on research. I appreciate the excellent tips for researching their questions even when site visitors are too shy to ask.
Ive always tried to put tons of content on my sites and sometimes it's difficult to come up with fresh Ideas all of the time so I really really really appreciate the effort put into this post and the value I gained from reading it. Thank you.
We write articles all the time. This was great, gave me extra ideas that I plan on using on my next article. Thanks for all you great tips.
Insightful article!!! Thanks!!!
All I can say is— THINK-really think, study, gain good information–AND GROW RICH.
And don't forget the magic ingrediant. ACT, get moving.