Free articles for links?

how well does this work? how do you get the word out?

[uhwebs]

I'm thinking of writing a few articles in my niche (maybe pull out some of the "top tips" from articles I've written) and allow others to use them on their websites, provided that they keep links back to the site.

How well does this work in your opinion? Is it bad that your website will have duplicate content?

Also, how do you get the word out about the free articles to other webmasters? I was thinking to include, in link exchange request emails, something like "By the way, we have a few free articles you can use..." etc.

Thoughts?

[wheel]

there's a number of ways to do this. I've only done it infrequently and very targetted. I don't write the articles and willy nilly start asking people. Instead, I pick the site and only use this as a last resort to get a link.

I suggest three topics. I assure them it will be noncommercial (and it won't) and informative. They pick the topic. they have final veto and can decline to publish after they've seen the article. If they decline, I keep the article.

That's worked for me occassionally on blogs. For a regular site, I don't know how that would work. I wouldn't publish someone else's article on my site, since I'm the expert on my market, on my site. Perhaps others can elaborate what would make them publish an article.

[uhwebs]

I know I've seen many webmasters offer free articles successfully, because I've seen many sites publishing the same "free" article.
So there must be a market for free articles.

What about sites that offer free articles to webmasters, and allow you to submit there? Anyone have luck with them?

[Lorel]

The only person/site that benefits from an article written by someone else is the first site that posts the article. All other sites will be dubbed as dupliates so unless the article is totally original (not rehashed from another article)I doubt it would bring any benefit. I've been looking for sites that agree to post an article but only once and can't find them.

[anallawalla]

Sites that love duplicate articles are usually AdSense sites. They have to rely on Yahoo and smaller engines for traffic because Google will filter them out.

Occasionally a site with plenty of original content will reprint an article from another site. Such incidental use is probably safe, but don't expect the copied page to rank well.

[nealrodriguez]

press releases perform that service; they don't work as before, in terms of traffic and links though.

i think a better idea would be for you to offer to write a guest post on another site in your niche with fresh content linking back to yours; ethically of course.

the webmaster has a fresh piece of content for his/her readers; you get a link and probably some good traffic if the site's got a good following. win/win