EZ4NewbiesBlog.png)
Hidden Content Sources for Your Website
Hi, this is Don. Welcome back to the EZ4Newbies Blog. Thanks for coming by again!
by Kim Roach
As I travel through the Google search engine, there is one element that defines almost all of the top-ranking websites. It’s great content. People come online for information and those that offer the best content reap the greatest rewards.
Unfortunately, this type of content is hard to come by. In most cases, you either have to spend hours in front of the keyboard or outsource the job to others. Both of these options are very costly. One requires your valuable time and the other requires an investment of around $10 – $20 per article.
That’s why I have scoured the net in search of valuable free content sources. I’m still not quite sure why I’m revealing my treasured piles of free content, but I certainly hope you enjoy them.
One of my favorite sources of content is public domain. This comprises the body of knowledge without a copyright. Anyone can use this material for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Below are some excellent sources for public domain material.
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a library of 18,000 free ebooks whose copyright has expired. “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”, “Pride and Prejudice”, “The Time Machine”, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”, and “The Canterbury Tales” have all passed into the public domain.
This means that you can put these on your website or even sell them in electronic or book format.
Explore a wealth of free content at Gutenberg.org.
Archive.org
At Archive.org you can find thousands of works that are currently in the public domain. Want to put some cartoons on your web site? Check out the “Film Chest Vintage Cartoons”, which is full of classic animated cartoons from the 1930’s and 1940’s. The collection includes Popeye, Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, The Three Stooges and Betty Boop. They also provide tons of other reproducable content including:
Brick Films: Commonly called “LEGO Movies”. Brick films are dedicated to the art of stop motion animation.
SabuCat Movie Trailers: The world’s largest collection of theatrical trailers.
Feature Films: A large number of classic feature films and shorts.
Universal Newsreels: Newsreels were shown before every feature film in the pre-tv era.
Computer Chronicles: Was the world’s most popular television program on personal technology during the height of the computer revolution.
Net Cafe: Television series covering the revolution during the height of the dot com boom.
All of these content sources are available for you to put on your website. check them out at Archive.org.
Another popular public domain destination is Wikipedia.org. Here you will find over 1 million articles ranging from Greek mythology and Egyptian history to business, health, and technology.
Go to Wikipedia.org for a huge collection of articles you can reprint on your own website.
Creative Commons
Every creative work receives copyright protetion as soon as you put pen to paper, hit save, or press record. Because of this, no one can use that work without express permission from the author.
Creative Commons provides a new content license that allows you to share your work with others. If you want, you can even allow other people to expand upon your existing work. This allows for creative co-authorship.
The Creative Commons license has made piles of content available for use on your web site. Whether you are looking for audio, images, video, or text, you can find an abundance of reusable information within the creative commons.
To search for content to put on your own web site, go to CreativeCommons.org.
Government Web Sites
Works produced by the U.S. Federal government are not copyrighted. If you obtain a government document from the net, you are free to copy and distribute the document. I have found plenty of great content about finance, retirement, health, business, and traveling on government websites.
To search for content offered by the United States government, go to http://www.google.com/unclesam.
Article Directories
There are thousands of writers on the internet and many of them would love for you to reprint their articles on your website. You can find thousands of free web articles at the following article directories.
GoArticles.com
EzineArticles.com
ArticleCity.com
Interviews
I consider interviews to be one of the best sources of quality content for your site. Simply interview industry professionals and post the recording and transcript on your website. This allows you to create original content very quickly.
Don’t be afraid to ask for an interview, most experts would be delighted to speak with you. Remember, this is probably one of their greatest passions. If you ask them politely, your chances for landing an interview are good.
You can conduct an interview in person, over the phone, or even through an e-mailed questionaire.
RSS Feeds
RSS is changing the way we consume information online. In addition, it has also provided thousands of new content sources for the online publisher. RSS is simply a file format similar to XML that is used by publishers to make their content available to others in a format that can be easily understood by web publishing software and content aggregators.
By using RSS feeds, you can enhance the content on your site without ever writing a single word. And remember, on the Internet, content is King.
Want to put Amazon products on your site, updated news from the New York Times, financial advice from Motley Fool, or press releases from PRWeb?
This is all possible with RSS. No matter what type of information you are looking for, RSS can provide you with a constant stream of updated content for your web site.
To search for an RSS feed to enhance your own website, go to Syndic8.com. You can even mix and match a variety of rss feeds at RSSMix.com.
Facts & Statistics
Looking for facts or figures to put on your website? Take a look at some of the sources below. You’ll likely be surprised how many facts, figures, and definitions are available in the public domain.
The CIA World Factbook provides a number of statistics on countries, territories, and dependencies. Each profile tracks such demographics as population, ethnicity, and literacy rates, as well as political, geographical and economic data.
http://www.census.gov/: One of the largest repositories for data and statistics related to the U.S.
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Main_Page: One of the best encyclopedia’s ever written was published over 90 years ago. Search over 40,000 articles, all of which are available for publication on your own site.
http://www.bibliomania.com/2/3/257/frameset.html: A searchable interface of the 1913 public domain Webster’s dictionary.
Private Label Articles
Private label articles can be bought for pennies per article. This is possible because they are sold in bulk.
Many people criticize these articles and have declared them as worthless. However, I am here to tell you that private label articles can be very powerful when used appropriately.
Unless you have hours of free time every day, it is unlikely that you are going to be able to create the amount of quality content that your web site deserves. This is where private label content enters the picture.
You can use private label articles to:
- Add content to your web site.
- Acquire hundreds of inbound links by syndicating the articles to article directories.
- Create a free report for your visitors and other website publishers.
- Create an information-packed RSS feed.
However, the key to using private label articles effectively is to optimize them. Straight out of the box, these articles are near worthless. To give them value, you must add your own touch.
Inject your personality into the article. Combine multiple articles and do some additional touch-ups to ensure that the article is in top shape for your readers.
Once you are finished you can add your resource box and send it off to article directories and website publishers.
If you are looking for one of the top private label article providers, go to InfoG oRound.com.
Images
Quality images can make your content much more inviting and keep people at your site for longer periods of time. Fortunately, there is a site that offers thousands of pictures completely free of charge. Find it at Stock.XCHNG.
Quotes
Quotes can give your website a special touch. Quotes provide interesting content in addition to an element of credibility. I often like to add related quotes to my web site simply to engage the reader’s attention.
To find some quotes for your website, go to QuoteGarden.com.
In the end, you always want your content to be unique. Not for the search engines, but for your visitors. With quality content comes quality links. Once you have built up a reputation for delivering unique content, you will never have to worry about having an audience eager to visit your website.
About The Author
Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews and SEO-News newsletters. You can contact Kim at: kim @ seo-news.com
Exit Splash – Big Splash or Little Ripple?
Have you heard about Exit Splash? If you’re like me, your inbox has been inundated (as usual) by this new product launch. What’s it all about?
Let’s take a look at this script, called “Exit Splash.” It’s a tiny, simple, yet powerful script that claims it can increase your sales by 40% and increase your opt-ins by 800%. All you have to do is just plug the Exit Splash program in to your website and you’re on your way to increased sales, conversions, and opt-ins.
How?
Exit Splash’s creators say that there’s an unseen income stream on your website. If you’re not using this particular powerful new script, they say, you’re just throwing it away. People are leaving your website and they’re not taking action.
It is well-known that visitors to your website may visit for only a few seconds and leave; that means you’re totally wasting that portion of your web traffic and not making money from it. In reality, as we all know, a majority of visitors leave without ever taking action (yeah, sad but true).
Exit Splash is a simple script you plug in your site which will send your departing visitors from their attempted exit to a redirected splash page set up with specific elements that will help monetize your business. This script works with all types of pages: sales page, landing page, squeeze page, content sites, and more.
How It Works
When someone tries leaving your site, an unblockable box pops up and gives them a reason to stay on your site. The visitor will then click to stay on your site and then will be directed to an “Exit Splash” page.
So, what is an “exit splash” page? It is a special web page that your visitor is taken to as an alternative to leaving your website. Let me sum it up:
1. Visitors go to your site
2. Exiting visitors see your message (a few will choose to leave anyway – their loss)
3. Many will continue to your exit splash page
4. Your exit splash page converts formerly wasted traffic into more sales and more subscribers
No matter what kind of site you have, people are going to leave – sometimes very fast. You only have a few precious seconds to grab their attention; if you don’t – they’re gone! The Exit Splash program gives you an opportunity to open a new line of communication with them and turn that potentially-wasted visitor into a prospect or even a sale.
Remember, the initial pop up is unblockable. It’s actually not a popup window at all, and it’s not a popover, or any other type of browser window.
Then what is it? It’s a special dialog box that is built in to practically all browsers. It is part of the internet protocol. It can’t be ignored; visitors must click on it to continue. You can put any message you want in the box and they will see it.Whether they stay or leave, they are forced to take action.
This is a powerful exit technology and it’s really simple to use. There’s no database, nothing to program, no responses to write, and no admin area to configure. You simply upload it and use it.
The downside? It may aggravate a few folks who are leaving your site. However, the gain in traffic retention offsets that easily, I believe. What do you think?
So there it is: a nice method to increase your profits, increase your conversions, and increase traffic – all with a tiny little script you plug in to your site. No hassles, no worries, and especially no more wasted visitors.
Disclaimer: Yes, I am an affiliate and that is my affiliate link above. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Seriously, if you can afford it, it is a great tool! At least go check it out.
Converting Every Web Page into Subscriber-Snatchers
Whether you own one-page sales letter business models or large content-based websites, you should turn every webpage possible into a subscriber-snatcher for you. The good news is that not only is this method very effective, it is just as effortless when it comes to applying the concept. OK, it takes a little effort, but I keep reminding you that this is a business, unless you decide to keep it as just a hobby.
Since visitors can and do come and leave without even remembering your website in the future (sad, I know, but true), you can still follow up with your visitors easily by seeking their permission to opt-in to your mailing list through your web pages – on autopilot.
You can create a pop-up window to appear after your visitor tries to close the window or leaves your website, asking for your visitor’s name and email address so that you can follow up with him or her in the near future via subscribing to your mailing list for free. Offering a free ebook or report makes a good incentive for them to sign up. People just like free stuff!
This way, you can convert at least a portion of your visitors into subscribers, giving you a chance to follow up with them on other offers you may have in the future, while regularly providing good content in between.
Another option is to insert an opt-in form within the virtual real estate of your web pages. This method is effective, especially since many internet users now have pop-up killers installed in their web browsers, set to block any pop-up windows. If you have an opt-in form on virtually every page, and sometimes two on one page, you’re much more likely to gain a subscriber. If they aren’t interested in subscribing, they’ll just ignore those forms anyway.
To sum up, turning every webpage you own into a subscriber-snatcher with little effort can be responsible for huge list-building results.
6 Ways How You Can Use PLR Content To Drive Traffic To Your Website And Boost Your Internet Marketing Business
Private Label Rights (PLR) content is very popular on the web today. PLR content is written by someone and then sold to other people, namely you, to use as you wish.
PLR e-books, reports, and articles are a special type of license which you purchase, or often get for free. With a PLR license, you are legally allowed to edit and publish the article as your own, even with your name as the author. Because you have the right to edit the article as you wish, it means that you can use it as web content on your site or add your links to your website and distribute it. Check the license for each item of your PLR content for any restrictions, such as not being allowed to break an ebook up into a series of articles.
Summarized below are some key ways you can use PLR content to drive traffic to your website and boost your internet marketing profits.
-
Increase your article marketing by using some PLR content. All you need to do is to simply edit the PLR articles and customize them to make them your own. Then submit them to article sites, where your author’s bio box will generally let you put in a link back to your site. Using PLR content saves you time in writing your articles and blog posts. By using PLR content, you can improve it and end up with an excellent article or blog post that will drive traffic to your website.
-
Increase your sales by developing a reputation as an expert in your niche. Again, PLR content make it much easier for you to build your reputation as an expert. Pass on some of your (re-written) PLR content to your customers and build their trust in you. You can then make some one-time-offers (OTOs) or recommend your affiliate programs to them, thus generating sales for free. OK, technically, not free – you do have to invest your time. However, if you lack a big budget to outsource this, you must do it yourself.
-
Improve your search engine rankings by submitting your re-written PLR articles. By submitting articles with your resource box and URL, you create one way links to your website, which search engines rank highly (at least at the moment).
-
Create and market information products using your PLR content. Edit and customize PLR articles and compile them into an e-book or digital report. It takes time to write an e-book, and it can also be expensive if you were to hire a ghostwriter or freelancer. You can therefore use PLR articles or e-books and add more value to them to create your own hot-selling e-books. You can sell them or give them for free on your website. When you give these articles for free, you can include your website URL in them. This in turn will drive traffic to your website if you let others pass them on to friends. It also lets you capture that person’s email address, thus building your list at the same time.
-
Use PLR content to provide an e-course or a newsletter. Building a list is of top importance in internet marketing, and you can use PLR content to offer an e-course on your web site. You can send regular emails to your list with a link to your website, and this increases the number of people who visit your website. Keep your list interested by regularly supplying them with useful content. As you know, your list is an important aspect of your business. You can send these PLR articles to your list regularly. This will make them visit your site on a regular basis. About 1 out of 4 or 5 of your emails should try to sell them something; more content then sales pitches – or you’ll get a lot of “unsubscribes”.
-
Create your own article directory in your niche using PLR content to improve the search engine optimization of your website. You can also add affiliate links or Google AdSense on your article directory, thus increasing your website traffic and profits.
In short, PLR content can be used to drive traffic to your website, build your list, and increase your online business profits. Have fun, make money!
