No matter what kind of business you’re doing online, you need content.  Every website owner needs good quality, unique content because without it your site will be doomed in terms of getting worthwhile traffic and good search engine page rank.

The Internet is all about information, and articles provide much of that. They also provide other benefits as identified by growing the exposure of the writer as a brand and the web business he or she owns.

Here’s My View

Now I have to be honest here and say that personally I believe for most Internet marketers learning how to write articles, content etc is possible the most important skill to get. Yep I know its tough, and I struggle with it on a regular basis but there’s really no real substitute. However I do understand for some it’s a real deal breaker so I suggest the following compromise identified below – write your own stuff at your own pace but supplement it with some of the other methods I’ll cover here.

But remember these methods are not a substitute to writing your own copy – do both.

The power of Articles

Often, articles are what get your site noticed by Google and the other search engines.  Providing you cleverly use keywords to provide the information that people are looking for that is.  They also show off your authority so that people know that you know your stuff.  Through articles placed on directories, you get backlinks to your site.  There are also articles used for newsletters, blogs and other promotional material.  In short, articles can be used in many ways to promote your business very effectively.

Going Viral – Via Facebook & Twitter

They also have to be good, content rich.  Your articles are the gateway to your product or services.  When readers like what you have to say and consider you knowledgeable about your niche, they click the link to find out more.  They also tell others about you using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.  This is essential for you to start selling your goods online.

But I Still ‘Hate’ Writing – I hear You Say

Now that we’ve established that articles are important to your online business, there’s just one problem.  Most people hate writing them.  For most people, writing articles is a laborious task that eats up time they’d rather use for something else.  Unless you’re a large company with lots of capital, you can’t afford to keep a stable of writer’s on-hand.

Lots of website owners copy the content of others, but this gets less and less results over the years as search engines increasingly look for original content.  Besides, plagiarism is unethical and illegal so you need to be careful there. Also some search engines actually penalise your site if it has duplicate content – so be warned.

So, if you hate writing, what else can you do?

Option 1- Public Domain material

One option is to find public domain articles.  These are free articles that anybody can use for any purpose.  There is no copyright infringement problem and you don’t have to spend any money.  You can take these articles and put them on your site, in your newsletters or other information products.  They can be chapters in your e-Book.  You can even put your name on them as the author.  That’s what public domain means – they belong to everybody.

The disadvantage of this is that there’s a possibility your competitors are using the same articles.  This could be a problem since your site should have unique content.  One way around this is to edit them or, even better, completely rewrite them.

Freelance writers often will do this for you at a fraction of the price for new articles.  Once they’re rewritten, they’re fully original and will be treated as so by the search engines

Option 2 –Start Your Own Directory

You can also start a user-submitted site.  Your site would be like an article directory, where people in your niche can publish their own articles.  Many people would love to do this because it gets them more exposure.  Meanwhile, it gets you more content.  However, you should have some content there already; this is a good way to add content to your site.  It also helps if you’ve got lots of traffic coming in because it means more exposure for the other writers.

But a word of caution here you do need to be able to control the content as poor quality content will actually harm your own position & site & not add to it – so do beware. To monitor it would be quite time consuming as well.

Option 3 – Outsourcing to a Freelancer

If you really want the best content possible, which is totally original, there’s no substitute for hiring a freelance writer to do some of your articles.  There are lots of online writers who offer reasonable rates and can get you high quality content that’s completely unique.  You can use these articles for a number or purposes to make it more cost effective.

Buying articles from a freelance writer is an investment.  These articles will get you traffic and retain the copyright, which means that you can use them for anything.  Once the money starts rolling in, you’ll be able to order more articles from them.  With a good writer who knows your niche, you can expect great quality.  Best of all, you won’t have to write as much yourself going into the future!

Again being honest here, although I’ve covered off 3 options for you my preferred one is Option 3 and is certainly the method  I use for our own purposes. Now as I’ve said before for us using freelancers is about complimenting and supplementing our own article writing – yep we still do loads of our own but because we want and need volume – believe me it works!

Tony

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