When you're building a website, it can be very challenging to create content at first - and since content is one of the best ways to get people to come to your site and stay - you want as much as you can. There are lots of ways to get content for your website, including:
- paying writers for articles
- writing a regular column yourself
- buying articles or reprint rights
- Use syndicated RSS feeds from other sites
- Downloading articles from reprint sites
Write the Content Yourself or In-house
This is the best way to get content that is unique for your site. Since you wrote the content (or your employees did), then you or your company hold the copyright to that content and can do whatever you want with it. Writing your own content gives you the most control, and provides you with a cheap way to get content.
But unless you are the world's fastest writer or you have lots of writers in-house, this can be a slow process. For example, the Web Design site on About.com has over 1,000 original articles, but it's taken me over 10 years to write them all.
Pay for Articles
Another way to get great articles for your site is to pay for them. You can either pay writers to write them for you or you can buy articles already written. On most content sites, you can even buy reprint rights from the owner. Paying for articles can get you high-quality articles quickly.
But paying for articles can be expensive and sometimes time-consuming. Most content sites don't have set rates for online (or offline) reprints, so you'll need to contact the site owner if you want to reprint an article.
Syndicating RSS Feeds
This is the best way to get free content quickly for your website. RSS was developed to be syndicated, and people who post RSS feeds typically want you to put their feed on your website.
But even with RSS feeds, you should be careful. There are many scraper sites out there that set up content on RSS feeds that they've plagiarized. If you're planning to use an RSS feed on your site, be sure to read it for a few days to see if it appears legitimate. Things that indicate a site might be a scraper:
- There is no contact information anywhere on the site
- There is more advertising on the site than content (especially Google ads)
- The links inside the posts are to a completely different site, but they don't reference that site's author
- The content is cut off after only a few words and you are encouraged to "read more" by going to another page on the site
Don't Use Reprint Sites - Even if the Content is Free
Another tempting place to get content is from an online reprinter. Online reprinters are companies that solicit articles that they then offer for reprint (and sometimes translation). On the surface, these reprinters look legitimate, often with long terms and conditions including dire warnings if authors post copyrighted material that is not their own.
But in my experience, these sites simply take any article that is uploaded to them and add it to their directories, without any verification or confirmation that the content is not plagiarized. I have found content from FoxNews, Investopedia, and Wikipedia as well as my own content all reprinted without permission on reprint sites. In fact, in one case, the owner of the reprint site advertises how to "ethically steal" content (I'm not sure he knows what the word "ethically" means).
If you post a plagiarized article on your site that you got from one of these resellers, you could be violating copyright. In most situations, the copyright holder will contact you and ask you to take the plagiarized content down. But some companies can be very aggressive in protecting their copyrights.
Some of the ways to tell if a reprints site is something to avoid:
- There are more advertisements than content on the article pages you're considering for reprint.
- The home page has a lot of "come-ons" and guarantees that their content will make you money or increase your site traffic.
- They don't list article authors, or the author information is blank.
- They have a lot of ways to "add new content" but it is difficult to find how to use the content as a reprint.
- They offer the ability to comment on articles, but the comment forms don't work.
- The don't have any contact information on the site, or the contact information is invalid, or the forms don't work.
- You just don't feel comfortable with the site, in general.
Use Free Content in a Smart Way
As the sayings go "you get what you pay for" and "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Free content might seem like a great way to improve your site, but if you don't choose wisely, you could end up having to deal with lawsuits and lawyers. And that is not going to be free.
Thanks to Mary, Al, and Mark for contributions and research for this article. And to Hillary and the rest of you (you know who you are) for listening to me rant. :-)
