Outsource content generation. - When you hire someone to write for you, there is no need to worry about not having great content. But you do have to fork out some money upfront to hire good writers. Usually, there are freelancers willing to write good articles of about 500 words for around $5 to $10. If budget is a concern, then the only way to overcome this challenge is to use free content.



Free web content. - There are tons of high quality web content on the Internet that you can use. A word of caution here - always respect the writer's rights. If there is a copyright notice, please don't go republish the content without permission. But there are two types of content that you can safely publish without having to worry about copyright issues.

The first type of content is public domain content. Make a quick search on the search engine for "public domain library". A few prominent websites will pop up immediately. You can use public domain content anyway you like - give them away as bonuses, resell them, or republish them on your website. You can always rewrite some of the content to make them look unique.

The second type of free web content is articles (like this one you are reading). Expert articles are widely available in article directories. You are free to republish the articles on your own site, on condition that the links in the author resource box remains intact. Do honor this policy. After all, the writers did spend time creating the quality content.

Let's take a look at some of the ways you can use free web content.

Publish for your blog readers. - If you don't have time to blog, you can always copy and paste one or two high quality articles for your readers. Choose the best articles that you can find. Remember, this is just a temporary solution. As soon as you free up your time, start blogging again and post unique content.

Send out in a newsletter. - You can always send out a high quality article as a monthly newsletter. Again, the key here is to pick on the best content. Don't publish articles that are below 500 words. There is probably not enough "meat" in the article for your readers. An article that is at least 700 words and above would work best.

Product giveaway. - This is an effective promotional method. In a giveaway event, recipients are always looking for valuable material that is free. If you don't have the time to write full reports, you can always use the free content to beef up the report a little before giving them away.

Rewrite for article marketing. - Many article directories will not accept duplicate articles. If you want to use articles for article marketing, make sure that it's a full rewrite. Complete sentences have to be rewritten for the article to appear unique. The benefit of using free articles as a starting point is that you don't have to think about what to write, and can proceed immediately. So how fast you write the article depends on how fast you can type. This can be an immense time saver.

Repackage and sell as an exclusive product. - You can always rewrite and repackage the content so that it appears exclusive. Usually, free to reprint articles do contain some nuggets of gold. But they are generally not well organized. It helps if you can put everything together into a nice little e-book, and provide the solutions that your customers are looking for. Again, if credit is due, please link back to the author website.

Use as a free bonus. - If you decide not the sell the product since you didn't write the content, you can always use it as an additional bonus for your offer. Marketers understand this - if your content is valuable and well organized, people will buy. Yes, even if it has been published in bits and pieces a gazillion times on the Internet.

Use as forum content. - A new forum is always in need of good content. Otherwise, it will appear too empty and members probably won't return to the forum to start threads or leave comments. A lot of work is involved to get a forum off the ground, so it may be a good idea to use some free web content to boost readership. Instead of hiring a dozen forum posters, perhaps posting a few free articles will help save you some money.

Most of these measures involve using good and free content intelligently. Remember, having access to thousands of free articles doesn't mean you should stop generating unique content. In many cases, as discussed above, they are usually used as a stop gap measure. Even then, you still have to spend a little time to look out for the good articles.

Having said that, knowing how to use free online content can save you quite a fair bit of time and money. So use them wisely.