The death of your site
by Rick Stratton
I wrote a post yesterday about the death of your homepage. That was tongue-in-cheek; your homepage isn't going anywhere. But it's importance has certainly declined over the last 6 years.
This post is about the death of your site and no, your site isn't going anywhere, either. But your content is - it no longer has to be secured within the walls of your website.
Your content needs to be free
By free, I'm not talking about $$$. I mean that readers don't have to visit your site to read your stuff.
For some publishers, it's already happening. Celebrity blogs and porn sites have traded content with their competitors for years. They've found that this shared content brings more visitors and more visitors means more money.
More recently, tech news blogs have begun the act. And no one does it more than The Business Insider. TBI regularly republishes articles from Gawker, AllThingsD and random bloggers.
Feed.Us has several customers that produce and sell content that never appears on their own sites. Like Blockshopper.com - they produce real estate content for several larger publishers. BS gets paid or swaps the content for traffic.
And now there are publishers, like Demand Media, that make a good living producing content for others - and don't even bother with their own site.
If you're a publisher, here are some ideas to free up your content:
1. Content swap: Regularly swap/trade/give your stories to other publications. If you believe in your content, you should never miss a chance to get your content in front of new eyeballs.
2. More more more posts. More posts = good, right? So ask for permission to run articles from other publications.
3. API your content. Create a special feed or give an API that other publishers or developers can use. There are people out there who will make a better site with your content. I wish my local Milwaukee Journal Sentinel would do this.
4. Ads: Your ads should run on your content regardless of where it's viewed.
Most ad systems won't support this. But even if it's just a link ("sponsored by x") at the end of the day it's about getting your sponsors more visitors.
5. Create a new site with your competitors:
Setup a partnership with your competitors and combine your content onto a separate site around a specific niche. I'd love to see TechCrunch, AllThingsD, Mashable and Alley Insider make a big site that has all of their headlines on one page. It would save me time and I'd probably read more.
6. Consider selling space on your site to other publishers. Or allow your advertisers to publish to specific spots or even pages on your site.
The bottom line is that your content doesn't need a home. It can find other places to live and still bring home rewards to your publication.
(Note: Feed.Us can be used to produce all of the above suggestions)