I was reading through some of the newer business/marketing blogs and articles/content posted on the social networks, and the content out there is pretty incredible. “IncrediBAD” to pick a pop cultural reference.

There’re 2 components that go into good content – style and substance.

Most readers will intuitive recognize substance – when they read, listen or watch something and they learn something interesting, informative, or have better awareness of a topic – whether it’s weight loss, online dating, or a new hobby.

So some writers have gone the whole hog when it comes to providing factual information – practically vomitting a boatload of facts about a product or service, but massively failing when it comes to organizing the information in an easy-to-understand manner.

That’s where style comes in.

Adapting your content to your audience means you can present the same set of facts differently to different audiences – whether they’re newbies or familiar with your topic.

“Getting into the head” of your prospect can help you craft and shape your marketing message – whether it’s intentended to inform (if your prospect is early in the sales cycle), or convert (if your prospect is about to make a buying decision) – so you’re ultimately growing your business.

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If you’re not sure what should go into your marketing message, or how you should shape it, it’s probably a sign that you don’t understand your prospect yet, especially if you’re in a new niche.

Going back to the research phase, looking up questions/convos in forums focused on your niche, looking up Wiki entries and Yahoo! Answers may seem like drudge work.

But if you do it right, and are able to craft your message for maximum conversion, it’ll mean you’ll be able to kill it with content.

A large part of your success will lie in building a loyal and large readership. And it’s not as hard as it might seem if you follow a couple of principles.

Principle 1: Pay It Forward

At the risk of sounding like a new age “Law of Attraction”/destiny manifestation proponent, I’m going to say that Law of Reciprocity determines the success of your written content.

If your content sites or affiliates sites are going beyond merely the hot/long-tail keywords, and strive to help people solve a burning issue or problem, you’re starting on the right track.

You’ve probably heard my constant refrain on the Friday Podcast about surfing for information before making a buying decision and landing on page after page of scraped manufacturer specs. If you can build the expert authority of a Tom’s Hardware or a Cnet, you’re moving in the right direction.

Principle 2: Positioning And Incremental Marketing

Here is the part that kills me…Why would you spend time writing great content and then fire an update on twitter or facebook or one of the other social networks and publish an update “New Blog Post: <URL>”

It’s like buying a set of new clothes and then have spinach sticking between your teeth – completely blows everything else.

An incremental marketing means you might take another 30 seconds to think up a sexy headline to “pull” traffic and eyeballs to your post. Look at your own browsing behavior.

Are you more attracted to “Everything I needed to succeed in internet marketing, I discovered at this site”, or “new article up: <URL>”.

Despite the following you’ve developed, taking the extra step to give your article, blog post, report the marketing exposure it deserves can give it extra legs and bring it beyond where you had originally intended.

On most days, I’d expect that 9 out of 10 people would expect to be entertained, rather than be bored.

If anything the teaser is a sign of things to come.

Principle 3: Think Outside of the Box

If you’re doing what everyone else is doing, you will get what everyone else is getting.

Consider how you can shake up the paradigm you’re in – how can you do things differently in a way to improve things, rather than being different for the sake of being different.

“Test and Tracking” are integral elements to successful PPC marketing and SEO efforts, why not content too. The tools already exist for split-testing content, and developing new innovative approaches and comparing them against your control.

At the same time, if your content isn’t tightly planned out or executed (or just plain funny enough), you could find yourself creating a bunch of content that no one wants to read. I experienced this in my early days and it’s certainly not a fun experience.

If you’re planning to interview experts for a podcast, a product like a book or course, or to provide entertainment, here are a couple of tips to help you up your game:

• Do your homework

Research your subject – their company AND their personal background. Having an insight into what the interviewee used to do and what they’re doing now can give you idea of how to structure the interview.

A good way to start is to google your interviewee’s name and company, or check Google News or Technorati or Techmeme.

Compiling the facts into a spreadsheet or text document and organizing it will help you with the next step:

• Have a gameplan

While I enjoy the stream-of-consciousness element of some interviews, it can get old especially after a month or two of “more of the same”.

Like any written piece, an interview or discussion should have an introduction, a body where content is developed, and a conclusion.

If you incorporate “takeaways” into your session, or have tips or resources that listeners can immediately check out after the session, you’ll provide value, build content stickiness and form a core of loyal listeners/viewers.

Structuring the discussion by various interview topics will help create a more organized discussion, especially if you can spend time to address questions related to a specific topic before moving on.

• Go with the flow and go deep

Although you have a gameplan in hand, use it as a rough guide. As interesting points develop, go deep on those topics – talking about case studies, specific examples, clarify definitions – to generate content depth.

As you talk about certain issues, parallel issues might also pop up, giving you an opportunity to “lateralize” your content. Heading in those directions, expands the scope of the discussion and provides an opportunity to create value.

Continually asking ‘what is the consequence of what the person just said, and how can I apply or use this information?” is a good metric to ensure that you remain on-topic.

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For past sessions of the Friday Podcast, check out the podcast archive.

Amit and I are in obvious agreement that niche sites can be very profitable. As Amit notes:

Yes, $1k-$2k/month is fairly typical for the amount of revenue that I generate from my content sites just free traffic. Small compared to what I make from PPC from these site, but it’s a great source of long term revenues & profits, especially if you continue to add content and get backlinks to your site.

That $1k-$2k/month can grow to $1k/day, I know one affiliate who have done this in 6 months by ranking high in Yahoo and MSN.

Certainly, niche sites can provide nice long tail income, especially if you’ve built a critical mass of niche sites.

Amit’s experience of talking to one super affiliate: I had a chance to speak with some other very successful super affiliates. I talked to one guy who was running 500 affiliate offers at one time, making $20-$50/day from each one. WOW!

Is fairly typical of a number of Super Affiliates I’ve worked together with.

But the one limiting factor, especially if you’re not already doing this regularly is:

How do you generate original and more importantly “sticky” content.

Tim notes in the comments to Amit’s post:

Thanks for addressing the issue of content creation. I’m curious to know where you are finding writers who work for $5 a page. Most of the eLance article writers I have seen who actually have a good command of English and write well charge a lot more than $5 a page. Maybe I’m not negotiating enough.

It would be great if you could share your “insider strategies” on quality content control and selecting the right people to outsource to. I’ve found some great people on eLance, but they’re not insanely cheap not do I want to insult them by nickel-and-diming them down to nothing. I think what Amit has said is that if you find someone good, expect to pay them well because they’re in pretty high demand.

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The reality is that you will get what you pay for. Proven quality costs.

A workaround is to find new guys on sites like elance, workaholics or rent a coder, who’ve yet to establish themselves and might be willing to do quality work on the cheap in order to build some positive feedback.

If you’re going along this approach, you might like to farm out a batch of 3 articles, and solicit 10-20 freelancers to work on your project. You could then do a ‘survivor’ style elimination and work with your favorite 2-3 writers.

The important thing to note is that you need to spend time scanning and headhunting quality. You might be really lucky and have a talented freelancer fall into your lap, but it’s not likely to happen.

In terms of negotiating a good rate, as a business consultant I look at three dimensions when working with a new prospect:

• What’s the level of trust/engagement?
• What’re the long term prospects?
• Am I merely a contractor or could I potentially be a “partner in profits”?

Addressing the trust/engagement issue, you need to establish rapport with your writer, make them feel comfortable. It’s just like any real-world, face-to-face relationship. If you feel secure with the person, the relationship will flow very smoothly.

You could demonstrate your commitment and explore the long term prospects by:

• Making an upfront payment for the job
• Making a long term commitment (contracting 500 pages of content over a 6 month period)
• Banking on your credibility (You’ve established yourself as an authority and as a credible person within your industry, haven’t you?)

Although it’s an online work relationship, many of the dynamics of physical relationships come into play.

You might’ve heard of several successful Internet Marketing partnerships where 2 guys met on a forum, decided to work on a project together, and ended up as partners. You might also have heard of an Internet Marketer who advertised for a programmer on Monster/Craigslist/LinkedIn/a forum, got someone to work on a couple of projects, found a good fit and eventually ended up as partners.

A number of the joint ventures I’m working on have also originated from forums. Whatever you might think, Internet Marketing is still a people/relationship business and at the end of the day, it’s not merely what you know, and who you know, it’s also a matter of how well you know them.

A cynic once told me, it’s not who you know, it’s who knows you.

There’s an element of truth in that, and keeping that phrase in mind, will help you go far in this business.