How to get Free Website Content: Where Articles can be found Online for Publishing

Building a website can be difficult for many business owners and hobbyists. Website maintenance usually requires frequent updates to content published for online visitors. Expenses for building a website can cost $300 or more for a variety of online services including content ownership. Learn how to get free website content that can be published without any long term financial obligations.

Host a Contest for the Best Articles

Public competitions are one effective way to get free website content. These contests attract online content that bloggers and website owners can use to promote their business. Advertising is the first step in promoting a contest where website owners can get free content. Grand prizes must be given for the best article submissions to a website. The submissions can be sent through email or a web form, as preferences among website owners vary. A contest can also be advertised on freelance writing message boards and job websites. Prizes are also a good way to get regular visitors interested in providing free website content.

Search through Article Directories

There are several websites that operate as article directories where nearly anyone can visit to get free website content. Bloggers and website owners can use these directories as filler when building an online business. There is a catch where publishers using this content must keep the byline that states who wrote these articles. Content provided through online directories usually come with a non-exclusive license. A number of non-affiliated websites could all be publishing the same article based on this license. This causes websites that publish content from article directories to loose their page rank. The decline in page rank is the result of duplicate content penalties placed by search engines. A potential page rank consequence is one reason why website owners are safer when publishing original content. Article directories still remain popular as the main source on how to get free website content.

Use Website Content with Creative Commons Licenses

Outsourcing articles, video and images to freelance writers or producers is another way to get free website content. Bloggers or website owners can search online for specialized authors who have large inventories of content. The authors usually consist of freelance writers who may own content that was published in print but not online. These items usually contain some form of Creative-Commons license, giving permission to be reused. Website owners do not have to worry about page rank penalties with this type of free online content. The licenses vary and may allow website owners to modify any text for their own needs. Doing so can remove the duplicate content issue in some circumstances. The publisher benefits from using private freelance contacts to get free website content.

Build on Information Provided in Press Releases

There is an abundance of opportunities for website owners to get free content using publicity materials. Best web designers in Traverse City and other marketing firms release photos, video and text for their clients with the goal of promoting consumer based products or services. Text is usually the easiest form of free website content to obtain through press releases. Publicists and entrepreneurs send out press releases to encourage more news stories about specific events. Website owners can write their own version of the events, using press releases as a resource. Many press releases can be republished as well, providing automatic opportunities to get free website content.

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Article Writing and Marketing – How To Get Started

You know you need articles to promote your online business across the Internet-whether doing it on your own or with some help from a web design agency, and to establish yourself as an authority in your niche. But suppose you have never written an article before and don't know how to start? You could hire a ghostwriter. But ghostwriters charge for their services. Given that you need to produce a large number of articles to have any effect, this would really eat into your profits. So why not learn to do it yourself? It is really not as hard as you think.

Get Started Writing Articles

There are few things worse than sitting staring at a blank sheet of paper. So don't do that. Just start. First, jot down as many topics as you can think that people want to know about in relation to your niche. For instance, if it is about growing roses, it could be planting, mulching, what varieties of rose to choose, pruning, protecting from pests, and so on. But don't give people what you think they ought to know; give them what you know they want to know. Go to forums on your topic and sites like Yahoo Answers to find out what questions people have. Make a list of topics, choose one, and start writing. Yes, just start. At this stage it doesn't matter what you write -- just write anything that comes into your head, even if it seems like rubbish. Just write. If you need more information, go to books on your topic, and articles on relevant websites. Never copy what anyone else has written, but it will get your ideas flowing. Just keep writing. Do it on paper or on the computer, whichever makes you feel more comfortable. When you have scribbled down as much as you can think of, have a break - take the dog for a walk, or water the roses. That really gets your subconscious working. Then you can start to write up the article.

Get It Down

You won't need telling that an article must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. But you would be strongly advised not to start with the beginning. The beginning needs to be an attention grabber and you will just sit chewing your pen or gazing into space. Start with the body of the article. Imagine you are writing a letter to a friend who has written to ask you why her roses won't grow properly (or whatever the problem might be). She is a newbie rose-grower so you need to be simple and clear. But she is also a friend so you want to be chatty, friendly, and personal. If you can imagine a particular person you know, so much the better. Write to that person. Keep that person - that is, your reader - in mind all the time. Keep using "you". If you have a list of tips, don't be afraid to make them into a bullet list. Of course, you probably wouldn't do this in a real letter to a friend, but it's an unbeatable way to get your points across clearly. Plus, directory and eZine editors love them. Your mythical (or possibly real) friend will almost certainly be very upset and frustrated at his/her lack of success at rose-growing, or whatever it is. Remember that people will be reading your article because they have the same problem, and they are likely to be upset and frustrated too. So show that you understand. Write as someone who has been there, though do avoid using the pronoun "I" as much as possible. It won't take you long to write a page along these lines. When you've written a page, do a word count. You will almost certainly find you have 400-500 words which is quite enough. Now you can write your opener. It will be much easier to write an opening sentence once you have written the body of the article. But always bear in mind that it needs to be an attention grabber. By all means start off with a question. But don't make it a boring one like "Have you ever wondered why so many people find rose-growing difficult?" Would this grab your attention? Your readers are not interested in other people's problems; they are interested in their own! So make sure you come up with an opener that gives your reader that "Wow! This is about me!" feeling. If you can generate a rush of excitement, so much the better. "At last! The answer I've been looking for!" Get straight to the point - never, whatever you do, indulge in opening waffle. The ending is as important as the beginning, because it determines the impression the article makes. You can write the greatest article, but if it fizzles out at the end, your reader will be dissatisfied and your effort will be wasted. Find a sentence that will pithily sum up what you have said, and reinforce that it will work. (Do not on any account use any phrase like "in summary" or "in conclusion".) Something like "Follow these steps and your roses will be the best on the block - guaranteed!" will do.

Get A Title

You are usually best leaving the title till last. There is no need to think you have to be terribly clever – and never use puns. Just make sure your title makes it clear what problem your article solves or what benefits it contains. And don’t forget numbers are always very popular in titles. If you have bullet points or a numbered list, put the number of points in your title: “Seven Tips to Supercharge Your Roses”.

Get It Out

You have wasted all this effort if nobody can see your article. Put it on your site and submit to as many directories and eZines as you can. And then start again – the more the better!

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Create a Sellable Product: Self Employment Without Strings?

Want to create a sellable product? Inventing a hot-selling item can be a very quick route to success, but it’s not a highly-likely one for most to achieve. It certainly seems like a bit of a drag to work at home, still doing someone else’s projects and meeting someone else’s deadlines. Is invention the only way to achieve self employment without strings?

Self Employed…for Someone Else?

After days, weeks, perhaps months of hard work, it’s all finally started to pay off. The work at home job opportunities are pouring in and so is the money…but somehow, it doesn’t quite match the dream of self employment, does it? After all, there are still people to answer to, deadlines to meet and set goals to be achieved - goals set by someone else, of course. It’s hard for self employed professionals to be told what to do, and at times it can make the joy of being self employed leave a bitter taste in the mouth. Why not simply create a sellable product, market it and achieve self employed success the “easy” way?

Can’t Anyone Create a Sellable Product?

The Internet makes a lot of things easy these days especially when you have e commerce web designers, and almost anyone can strike out to become a self-made entrepreneur using this fabulous tool. Create a product to sell, create a Web site to market it from and watch the money come tumbling in…right? The trouble is, none of this is at all as easy as it sounds when glibly stated. Creating a product takes time, testing and lots of trial-and-error. Even when the product is created, there is absolutely no guarantee it will sell. Depending on what the product is, there may be patents, licensing fees and government testing standards involved all well - things which cost a great deal more money and effort. But selling online to achieve self employment certainly isn’t impossible, either.

Self Employment Without Strings

In a way, every single self employed professional out there is selling something. Whether self-marketing products and services, or shopping around online to find work at home job opportunities and gigs, the self employed story is somewhat similar for all. Even when mass-marketing a service or product to the world, there are people to please - customers and clients who expect a certain level of quality. Whether the job is writing on demand (with topics, even certain keywords being dreamed up not by the writer, but the buyer) or simply selling the Web, it’s necessary to work toward pleasing someone else. In self employment, there is little self-serving and self-pleasing, because it’s necessary to receive money from others to keep the career going. However, it is possible to carefully choose products and services to offer, to be discerning in opportunities, jobs and gigs accepted and to maintain a certain standard in work. That, in a way, is self employment without strings.

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Business Success with Web 2.0: How to Use Social Networking in Your Business Marketing Plan

Take advantage of the new interactive social networking developments to significantly grow your business. Learn how they work and which ones are appropriate for your business. Understanding how your target market uses these new tools will help you to use them to effectively impact your business' bottom line. Web 2.0 has taken the Internet and changed it from a one way conversation with website visitors to real interactions. The evolution has changed the way software developers look at opportunities to create new programming. Some of the biggest most important developments include social networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. All of them can be used for creating new ways and possibilities for marketing your business.

Using Social Networking in Your Business Marketing Plan

Sites such as Facebook, Linkedin, Ning, Perfect Networker and Fast Pitch are all opportunities to network and interact with your target market. Developing relationships is more important than ever in today’s marketplace. These sites give you the opportunity to interact with folks allowing them to get to know you and develop that level of trust that is so important in their buying decisions.

Using Video Sharing to Market Your Business

These sites have become very popular and can be a great addition to any blog. Talk about allowing folks to get to know you and create your reputation as the expert in your target market! Posting video on sites like YouTube, Google Video, and BrightCove gives you an opportunity to make an emotional connection with your target market.

Using Wikis to Share Knowledge about Your Business

Wikis are web pages that allow anyone or a specific group of people to add to the content, comment and edit. They are great for sharing knowledge and a sense of community. Want your clients to feel connected with you and your company? Create a wiki where they can interact with you. Sites such as Wetpaint, Squidoo and Hubpages offer these options and they are free.

Using Blogs to Reach Your Market

Blogs are very different than the traditional web page which is very stagnant. Blogs are constantly being updated and allowing you to share more of yourself and who you are. Readers can comment on your posts and you can begin that all important relationship development. Even the micro blog called Twitter allows you do interact and develop relationships.

Using Folksonomies to Draw Attention to Your Site

Heard of Folksonomies? You have you just didn’t know it. Think of sites like Digg, Stumble Upon and Delicious. They are all sites that allow you to tag items on the web that you find of interest. The more an item is tagged the more attention it gets. You can tag your own items and ask your sphere of influence tag them as well to give them a higher relevance. Business owners can incorporate all of these items into their marketing plan. First, with some help from a web designer in traverse city you can do some research to determine if your target market can be reached with these tools. If not, be careful to not get sucked into the latest fad for the sake of the fad. But by all means, if your ideal client can be touched by using Web 2.0 tools, get busy.

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How To Optimize Pages For Conversion:PPC And How Traverse City Web Design Plays A Role In Increasing Conversion

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How to Optimize Content for AdSense: Optimizing for SEO and CPC Revenue using AdWords, AdSense and Google This article is about optimizing content to attract visitors and earn revenue from them. It is geared towards AdSense, as the title implies, but the same techniques can be applied to any affiliate scheme:

• ClickBank
• Amazon
• CafePress

The key is in identifying an easy to target niche, being able to specify exactly what kind of traffic visits that niche, and identifying the keywords used by visitors ready to buy. The money that can be made from niches ranges from paltry to extreme; comparative success in small niches may only lead to moderate revenues, but this article is aimed at making sure that the content provider maximizes the potential of any niche. If you do not have a the technical skills to do this yourself, consider hiring a web design company to help you. Once your site is looking sharp, it is time to start promoting it online.

Google Optimization for Traffic

Optimizing for traffic means that the reader needs to examine the link between keyword phrases that are easy to target (niche), and relevant to their proposed article. So, before writing it, it is a good idea to jot down five or six words that encapsulate the subject matter. Go to the Google AdWords Keyword Tool;

• Enter the keywords, one per line;
• Enter the CAPTCHA text;
• Click the button.
• In the results, the researcher should then sort by Searches – this will yield a list that is ordered according to how many Google searches were performed for the keyword phrase.

AdSense Optimization for Revenue

There is also a column that the reader can activate from the drop down box, called CPC. This is the anticipated cost per click that the AdWords advertiser would have to pay and is a relative measure of the income that an AdSense publisher could earn from each click. It is not an absolute value, it is a guideline. If the list from above is sorted by CPC, then a slightly different take on the results is apparent. Some move to the top, others move right down, depending on competition, anticipated intrinsic value, etc. The advertisers have far more resources dedicated to keyword research, and a much better understanding of the market, than 99.99% of content providers, so riding on their coat-tails is an absolute must.

The Google AdSense SEO Paradigm for Maximum Income

Now that the reader understands the principles driving AdSense, it is time to pull the techniques together and look at how to optimize the SEO paradigm to maximize income. In essence, the publisher wants to both garner as many visitors as possible, whilst making the most of each potential visitor. This means picking keywords that:

• attract traffic
• attract advertisers
• can place highly in search engine results
• This last piece is vital – if nobody sees the entry in the search engine results pages (the SERPs rating), then they won't be able to click. They won't know that the page even exists.

Therefore, the publisher should be realistic in their choice of keywords, and measure the anticipated effectiveness by using the phrase length (number of words) as an indicator. Building this measure in will cause lower ranked phrases to outrank phrases with more anticipated competition, and be more readily selected by the publisher. This assumes, of course, that longer tail keyword phases have less search engine competition. To validate this for their niche, the reader will, naturally, need to experiment and test. [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label="Row" make_fullwidth="off" use_custom_width="off" width_unit="on" use_custom_gutter="off" allow_player_pause="off" parallax="off" parallax_method="on" make_equal="off" parallax_1="off" parallax_method_1="off" parallax_2="off" parallax_method_2="off"][et_pb_column type="1_2"][et_pb_button admin_label="Button" button_url="tel:8559830303" url_new_window="on" button_text="Call Now" button_alignment="left" background_layout="light" custom_button="on" button_text_color="#ffffff" button_bg_color="#21c674" button_letter_spacing="0" button_use_icon="on" button_icon="%%104%%" button_icon_placement="left" button_on_hover="off" button_letter_spacing_hover="0" /][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type="1_2"][et_pb_button admin_label="Button" button_url="https://mastermindseo.org/client-application/" url_new_window="on" button_text="Request More Info" button_alignment="left" background_layout="light" custom_button="on" button_text_color="#ffffff" button_bg_color="#0ea2f2" button_letter_spacing="0" button_use_icon="default" button_icon="%%71%%" button_icon_placement="left" button_on_hover="off" button_letter_spacing_hover="0" /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

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Become More Social: Networking Is The Place To Be Seen

The phenomena of social networking sites is now old news but they are still growing stronger and stronger every day with more and more people discovering the benefits of getting more social online. This means there is a great marketing opportunity for your eBusiness. With millions of online user’s already on social networking and with new members joining up every minute if you have a web based business advertising or setting up a business profile on these websites could be great for your business. Do social networks damage your business? A lot of business owners (certainly those of a certain age) only hear bad things about social networking sites from the media such as relationship breakups, online bullying and staff wasting time on them. Because of this if even mention them in board room meetings people instantly think you must be one of those people that waste so much time on these websites. There have indeed been cases such as these highlighted by the media but if you miss out on the opportunity that social networking sites offer your competition will not. Consider the fact that Microsoft paid millions for just 1% of Facebook and that Google bought the social video site YouTube for $1.65billion and you can see that the two internet giants certainly think that social sites are important for their business. If you build a social profile for your business and encourage your staff and customers to use it to make comments about the business you can use the social networks to your advantage and build a community around your business. Whether you like it or not the fact that staff can use Facebook on their mobiles means that even if you cut their internet access to these sites they will still have access via their phones. Better to offer them limited time windows to check for updates and in return for them being encouraged to use the company profile pages meaning that even the time spent wasting time is actually benefiting the business. Why should you have a company social profile? Apart from the benefits already discussed having a social profile can help with your Search Engine Marketing campaigns. Because social networks are updated daily, hourly and so on the content is always updating and therefore can only have a positive effect on your SEO work. Google has brought YouTube into the search results. Have you noticed that the more and more you search these days on Google that amongst the results you get YouTube videos? This is no accident. Seeing the benefit of YouTube Google bought the site realising the social service it was and now includes it in the search results returned. This is a great SEO opportunity for companies to create videos about their business as mini adverts. Low budget and easy to do this could be a great chance to increase your company’s online profile. As social networks are updated so often with people updating their profiles regularly and sending messages to each other instantly they are much faster than any other medium for getting a message or news out there. SEO campaigns can take months for the message to get across whereas social networks get the message out instantly. They can aid with your SEO campaigns and give an instant news update about promotions and more. Advertising on social networks There is another great reason to look at social networks and that’s the advertising potential. With and estimate 1 in every 5 people on the globe having some sort of access to social networks let alone profiles there is an obvious marketing and advertising potential here. Add to the fact that so many people spend so much time on these sites means that their exposure to your advertising and brand is increased. The benefits of advertising on a social network though do not end there. On top of this massive market there is the added advantage of marketing to the subconscious. People associate social networking with their friends and family and therefore have a positive place in their minds. As adverts on these sites tend to be in the left or right peripheral vision areas where the mind subconsciously takes in the information then you’re branding will be being display to them when they are in a positive frame of mind providing a positive relationship between your brand and them on a subconscious level. If your advert has eye catching animation you will gain their conscious attention and possibly direct them to your website. There is no another benefit that social networks offer you in the advertising arena; profiled advertising. Profiled advertising is targeted advertising directed to people who fit your target audience. When people join social networks they give details about themselves; their name, age, where they live, job title, interests, income, likes and dislikes and more. Social networks use this information to make sure the adverts the user sees fits the profile of the person it is marketing to. So if you want to market direct to your target audience, provided they use social networking this is a great medium. A lot of the social networks now also offer pay per click advertising meaning that you will only pay for the adverts that generate clicks for your website. All in all social networks are a must for any online serious business.

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Basic Marketing Strategies that Work: General Approaches to Freelance Marketing

When a freelance marketer intends to approach small to medium enterprises as clients, keep in mind that not every owner from this segment will immediately concur to all marketing strategies as planned, particularly those strategies that are too expensive. Understand that there are some business owners running on a shoestring budget, and could request far more affordable marketing strategies to start with. This is perfectly all right; a great freelance marketer should know how to adjust to the capacity of any marketing client. So to help a new freelance marketer, below are basic marketing strategies and general approaches that might come in handy: The Power of Blog Marketing Thanks to the age of blogging, nothing is anymore impossible when it comes to getting products and services visible to a wider market – locally and internationally. There are in fact two blog marketing strategies: get a free business blog or website to kick things off; advertise on other blogs through banners and reviews. Work on a good deal with powerful bloggers to run the campaigns in their blogs. It can be through banners, links, or paid reviews that are very rampant nowadays. Nothing beats a good word to campaign an excellent brand. Don’t Underestimate Telemarketing Selling through telemarketing is absolutely a difficult approach to possible customers. What with the cold calls that have become so commonplace and annoying for homeowners, offices, and other establishments. Not to discount that telemarketing is time consuming. Nonetheless, if a freelance marketer has the effective telemarketing strategies to move toward a successful promotion on the phone, it becomes a powerful marketing strategy and rather cheap, too, that is if the business has its telemarketer than making way for call center agents to do it. Take it this way - a good talk is worth a good sale. Word-of-Mouth Marketing for Brand Awareness This strategy is simply about keeping the target market in the loop. It may not be the best marketing strategy for some, but it still works for the purpose of brand awareness. Word-of-mouth marketing strategy can be implemented in different ways though. For one, a freelance marketer can give out invites for a free product test or service trial to very few regular or loyal customers. The payback from such invite is, of course, to spread the word about the experience and promote that particular product or service, if possible, bring new customer referrals. Now, if the business owner is willing to spend more in that case, a freelance marketer can also hire few agents to campaign it to the right market, be it during functions, events, or simple, daily discussions with target customers. Be careful, however, when choosing whom to give the freebies, or agents to hire for the job. Make it sure these cream-of-the-crop agents have influences within a particular demographic, and can truly help in intensifying campaigns of the business, or else it's just a waste of energy and money. And so word of mouth becomes just that - word of mouth. A taut marketing budget should not hinder an efficient freelance marketer to campaign and provide brand awareness. Besides, there are other effective and similarly affordable marketing strategies to pursue and work with. Though using only the aforementioned strategies may albeit cramp the opportunities to capture a larger market for a time being, bear in mind that this is only the beginning of a bigger, better picture between the satisfied marketing client and a freelance marketer, after showing a good head start.

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