This is the second installment in our series of posts about how to make a money as a content provider. In part one we established that the key to making more money was generating as much traffic as possible. We also discussed some of the techniques that content providers can use to make money in an ad share revenue business model.

We also established that the best way to generate more traffic was to work on building a community that would rely upon the content provider as a trusted resource of news and information. That begged the question of how to build that community.

So how do we do it? What do we do to create a community of people that rely upon us as that trusted resource of news and information.  We begin by making a list of websites that provide content on the topics upon which we write. In an ideal situation some of those same websites will be in need of writers and will be glad to bring you on board as a writer. However that is not critical to building the community.

What is more important is having the ability to interact with the people that frequent those websites. The ability to comment on posts and begin to establish relationships will be your primary goal. You are going to want to spend as much time as you can commenting in these places so that you can become accepted as part of that community.

Bear in mind that if you want to do this right you will want to leave thoughtful comments that show that you are engaged and not just trolling. You never want to be seen as a spammer. You can’t show up and leave remarks that say “nice work, please check out xyz.com” because at best you will lose credibility and at worst you will be banned from commenting.

Image via Wikipedia

A Community Needs a Hub

Every community needs a hub or anchor to hold onto. As a content provider this is one of the most critical elements of success. Your readers need to have a resource that they can use to find your content.
The easiest way to do this is to create a blog or a Facebook page that you use to let people know about your content both new and old.

In addition you can use tools like Digg, Stumbleupon and Twitter to drive traffic to your Facebook page or blog. If you are really ambitious you can even create your own email newsletter.  Remember all of these tools are viral in nature and as such they lend themselves to helping you build your community.

Be diligent, be patient and take your time and you will find that the money you make from working as a content provider adds up over time.