Everyone has heard the old adage that content is king, especially when it comes to a website. Without content, a website has absolutely no value. The content can be user generated, it can be internally generated, or it can be commissioned.

I like to think of content as an investment; the more I buy, the more money I make. One day, while thinking back on all the months I have been doing business online, and how much content I could have created since the beginning, I decided to set myself a monthly content development goal of about $1,000-$2,000 per month. I think of this the same way as depositing funds into a mutual fund, the stock market, or any other traditional investment vehicle.

Of course, you need a website and a strategy to properly utilize your content, but once you have one, it can generate amazing returns that are not typical of other investments. Here are 10 reasons why I think you should be investing in content creation on a regular basis:

1. Content is the backbone of any website. If you invest in content, you can build a huge portfolio of websites. The hardest part about building a website is adding useful content. Therefore, the more you purchase, the easier it becomes to expand your empire.
2. Content builds links. Good content will give you many opportunities to generate links to your site. Other webmasters will link to your content, you can submit it to blog carnivals, you can use it for guest posts, or you can use it for deep directory submissions.
3. Content generates traffic. The links that content helps build, combined with the keyword rich text that is the content, have the potential to send a steady stream of visitors to your websites. As a result of good content, traffic will be sent from search engines, from direct links on other websites, and from referrals among friends.
4. Content is cheap. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to get quality content. If you order content in batches, many freelance writers will be more than happy to offer discounted rates. A native English-speaking freelancer can be hired for $3-$5 per small article, or up to $15 per large article.
5. Content is easy to create. Hire a writer who is passionate about a given topic and your job is done. Just decide on a topic and choose the freelancer. They will be happy to come up with the quality content on their own.
6. Content is a low maintenance investment. Unlike real estate or businesses, content does not need to be looked after or cared for. It is very realistic to simply load a website with quality content and let it be.
7. Content is a low risk investment. There is no barrier to entry with content creation. You can start investing in content with less than $10. How much money you invest at any given time is entirely up to you, giving you the ability to track the results and gauge the success before risking any more.
8. Content can be quickly sold for a profit. Just add value. If you spend $300 generating content around a given theme, load it into a website, and secure a few advertisers, you can easily sell the website for more than what you invested. A website generating just $50 per month that has quality, original content could easily be sold for $800-$1000. That isn’t a huge return, but $50 a month isn’t that hard to generate either.
9. Content has the potential to generate amazing returns. Especially in mass quantities, your collective content investments can generate huge advertising revenues. You can make money through affiliate programs, direct deals, or traditional ad networks. The returns can be compounded if just a few of your articles become viral.
10. Content can be timeless. If centered around the right topics, your content will never become obsolete. The great thing about this is that a one-time investment can continue to generate revenue for the rest of your life, and the magnitude of that revenue is likely to continually increase.

If you don’t have a lot of money to spare, it can sometimes be hard to see the long terms benefits of investments. Focusing on what you will have accomplished in the future is a good way to combat this. If you start investing in content now, before you know it, that content will be paying for new content on its own. Once you reach that point, it becomes a snowball effect where your online assets become larger and larger by the day.

You don’t have to take this advice, but I would definitely advise you to. It is just like with traditional investments; the sooner you start, the more power you will see through the miracle of compounding.