Free Article Content as Money-Making Resource
Some webmasters (website owners and/or publishers) set out to make money by using articles from free content directories in the hope of attracting visitors to their website and product pages.
Among webmasters who employ this tactic are those who have just begun working as affiliates for various companies and, as such, have little to no cash resources to purchase articles, although they need to build small niche websites to attract visitors and begin earning money.
Although this can sometimes be the only option for those who are operating on an almost non-existent budget, it is not the most suitable way to effectively build your website or revenue.
There are a few reasons why this is potentially detrimental to your business building efforts, and under these circumstances detrimental translates to predicament. Here are a number of problems that can result from using articles from free content directories.
Predicament #1 – Search Engines
Search engines will look down (frown) upon your site if it is found to have exactly the same (duplicated) content found on other sites; and the more sites that share your content, the less it will help you achieve good position on SERP (Search Engine Results Page) rankings.
Good search engine rankings are essential in getting visitors to your site so that they have a chance to click on your affiliate links. If you cannot even attract visitors then will never make money; so working on the search engine optimization of your site so that you will eventually be high enough in the SERPs to get customers, should be priority one.
Predicament #2 – Getting visitors to click
Although getting your site high on search engine result pages and acquiring site visitors is hard work, unfortunately this is only half of the battle. You must also be able to convince those visitors to click on your affiliate links, and if your visitors see the same content they have seen on a number of other sites, they will be less likely to click on your links. This is because most people want to buy things that are recommended by people they consider trustworthy or whom they believe to be experts on the subject they’re writing about.
If your content is just duplicated from other sites, you will be exposed as someone who does not really know what they are talking about and therefore will not look favorably on your product recommendations. This will reduce the number of website visitors who are willing to click through.
Predicament #3 – Author Bylines
Most free content is only given to you if you agree to place the authors byline under the article (you can get into trouble if you try to use it without following the stipulated rules) and this poses a problem because in the sense that most author bylines include links.
Therefore when a reader gets done reading a really intriguing article, there is a strong possibility that they will click on the author’s byline link rather than your affiliate links.
This is the entire reason why these authors offer free content to begin with, so that they can get their names and links out there to the public. Using this type of content may mean shooting yourself in the foot and losing any profits anticipated from your website visitors.
Once you put these three problems together, you are looking at a serious decline in revenue simply because you used free website content from article directories. Although it may be the only option for some you should buy your own original content if you have the money to so.
If, on the other hand, you don’t have the money, you may be better off writing your own content about a subject you are familiar with and then hiring professional services once you have made enough of a profit to work with.
