If you never heard about the 30-days startup challenge that I am taking, then I suggest you to read the following list of articles. Today we will disclose the business model behind WordiZ, the application we are creating. By doing this, I am of course aware of confidential issues, but I have the feeling that people tend to be lazy and stealing ideas take some energy. Since I am also some steps ahead from I will describe here, the concept given is the one I wrote down 2 weeks ago, and it as slightly evolved.
So let’s start. If I am not clear and if you don’t understand the core of the business, just post a comment at the end of the blog post.
What is WordiZ for?
Before entering into the topic, let me try to briefly explain our application : WordiZ is a job board dedicated to web copywriters journalists and bloggers.
Search Engine Optimization, Content and Social Media Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has always been promoting quality content and pushing for quality over quantity. This has never really happened, and the history of SEO if full with Google bombing stories where basically a page is sent on the top position of google due to many incoming links. Indeed a webpage is defined by a URL (web address) and search engines can retrieve how many incoming links are pointing toward the URL.
However, the advent of social networks (twitter, facebook, google+) has changed the landscape. Nowadays in addition to incoming links, search engines can also ask social networks how many time an article has been shared or liked. This contribute to what I call the social impact or social factor. People work on the Social Marketing Optimization (SMO). So, to make a long story short, an article with many links is well ranked on Google, but an article with many links AND many likes/shares would rank better.
Of course all this is dynamic, and if your page ranks number one today, it will not stay like this forever. Competitors are in the same race.
Hiring famous bloggers to rank better
So assume now that you have your website and would like to get more visitors. You will try to be first on Google. For this, often you will need fresh and new content each week/day on your website. A common strategy for SEO people, is to add a blog to your website, and post new articles quite often. However, writing and posting an article is quite tedious sometimes. Here comes WordiZ.
By hiring professional bloggers and copywriters you get two things. First you get some content, but this is not new (see section below). Second you get the fame of the writer you hire, and to some extent his/her fanbase. Assume you hire John Doe to write about electric cars on your blog. After his article is posted on your blog, he will probably post the link on his social networks, and thus, bring fans to read your webpage. Even if it is not the case, John Doe is an influential blogger, so, no doubt that your page will receive lots of coverage.
WordiZ is the platform which will allow you to do the following :
- look for writers specialized in your topic
- rank them by celebrity/influence
- ask them to work for you
From the writer side, a job on WordiZ is more rewarding than being hired to be a ghost writer. Your articles will keep your name on them, you will still keep the property of your writings, and you can build your influence on the topic you love.
Competitors
So far, many content providers and selling content for cheap rates. They are basing their strategy on anonymous authors creating content in gross amount. They take some percentage on the transaction and the business is done. This is good when you can promote your content and do some SEO / Social Marketing to help people discovering “your” articles. However, this is not a win-win situation. Many professional bloggers/copywriters cannot survive with the rates offered by these platforms. Offshore workers are often found among the mass-writers of such platforms.
Our service will be different. Instead of providing cheap anonymous content, we will provide content at the right
What is a business model
A business model is made for people to rapidly understand how your business works and how it will bring you some cash. The main goal of a business should be to bring value to your customers. This should be the central thing you keep in mind when you develop your business model. To know more about this, I strongly suggest you to read Guy Kawasaki‘s book ” The Art of the Start“.
Several methodologies exist to write a good business model. However, recently, a trend occurred due to the best-seller “Business Model Generation
To summarize the action of WordiZ, I created this matrix for my readers. You can view several facts I did not discuss above. This matrix is evolving a lot. Whenever I have new ideas, I put them on it (not on the PDF below). The matrix help me to keep a broad overview of the project.
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to post a comment below.
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Click to download the PDF version
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How do you prepare your business model?
Now it is your turn. Let us know if you have ever used the Business Model matrix. Do you have any trick to plan things coherently? Drop us a line of comment below.