Interview with Chris from Constant Content
After that little incident here a few days ago with the guy who was "kicked out" of Constant Content I decided to interview the owner, Chris (damn, there are a lot of guys named Chris in this biz.) Here is a copy as posted on my new blog:
I recently had the opportunity to interview the owner and founder of Constant-Content.com, Chris Ross.
Constant Content connects authors and website publishers together in an online marketplace. Having trouble writing all your website’s articles on your own? This is a good place to start looking.
Constant Content has several notable features.. You can purchase different license types to meet your specific needs and budget. You can also request a custom article be written, but you are under no obligation to buy it if you don’t like the author’s summery.
Andrew: When did you first get the idea for Constant Content?
Chris: I was a webmaster putting up many websites trying to make money off Google’s Adsense program. My problem was I couldn’t find any good writers and the writers I did find were stealing others content or the English was very poor. People would be shocked how much content is stolen or rewritten on The internet. This is plagiarism and something Constant Content watches carefully. We reject hundreds of article each month for stolen content or plagiarism.
This is when I came up with the idea, it started pretty basic and has grown to a pretty complicated system. We add new features daily and will continue to do so.
Andrew: How many different people have purchased articles through Constant Content?
Chris: This is hard to say but the site has had over 1000 orders; some orders are single orders, others have 20+ articles within the order. We have over 10,000 articles downloaded, but this includes free article downloads as Well as purchased articles. Keep in mind this is still a very new idea. Constant Content has only been online for a little more then a year. Most of our customers are return customers.
Andrew: How many writers use Constant Content?
Chris: We have over 2500+ writers, but they are not all active. I would say close to 200 are real active and others simply wait for custom requests or come and go.
Andrew: Many websites, whether it is forums or dating sites, seem to suffer from the paradox that you need users to get users. What would you attribute to giving you that initial momentum to grow?
Chris: Well there are two side of Constant Content, the writers and the customers. First you need writers and then you need customers. It was hard in the beginning but I was able to work with a group of dedicated writers who thought the idea was a good one. The thing about writers is they love to write so word of mouth advertising with writers was not very hard. After You have a good reputation with a group of writers the word will spread quickly. Of course the same can go the other way around, if you have a bad Reputation the word will spread even quicker. Never upset a writer :)
As for the customers this was trickier.. I’m a member of some webmaster communities so I was able to spread the word that way at first. But the majority of customers has come from advertising. I continue to constantly advertise in order to keep my writers happy. As long as they are selling, they are happy.
Andrew: Do you run your own content websites?
Constant Content is a content website, we also purchase articles that are doing well with traffic. An example can be found here.
Notice the entire right side is Adsense ads. We no longer are making content sites because of this, but its not to say we will not start again. Right now I’m putting 100% into Constant Content.
Andrew: On the front page of Constant Content is says:
“Are you the type of person who easily understands HTML and CSS, and
perhaps even PHP and ASP? When it comes to planning and designing
websites, do your designs sing with the right colors and fast loading
images? But does your web site content somehow always seem to hit sour
notes?”
Do you consider yourself more of the technical programmer guy, a
designer, writer, or a mixture of two or all of them?
Chris: As you can tell from this interview I’m not a writer, I’m the farthest thing from it. I’m more technical in nature, but I contract most of my technical work out as well. Call me the jack of all trades, master of none. My strongest skills are in server administration/IT, marketing, and business.
Andrew: Where would you like to see yourself in 10 years?
Chris: That’s a tough question, but retired and traveling would be the ideal answer. But in reality the answer is more like 10 years older doing the same things I do now.
Thanks Chris for letting me interview you & good luck with Constant Content!
