Blog sites are best suited to repurpose these resources, but they can also be useful for providing free graphics, text and even music for other types of website.
To be clear, the content we’re talking about isn’t something you’d put on the front of your site to draw people in – it’s something to use to fill deeper pages and make the site seem more substantial.
However, we should make it clear that this sort of content won’t adhere to the same standards as professionally designed material – the latter costs plenty, whereas this content is completely free.
Before jumping in we should also point out that using work without permission could have serious legal implications, so make sure that anything you use is genuinely copyright-free.
Bearing all that in mind, here are six ways to source free content for your site.
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1. Free graphics
AdvertisementSourcing suitable graphics which aren’t copyrighted can be difficult. But there are lots of very good resources which allow their images to be used freely without consent.
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These are just a few of the numerous sites that offer bitmap graphics and photographs which you can use freely. There are many others, too.
In addition to pixel-based graphics, there are also some sources of copyright-free vector graphics that can be easily rescaled to whatever size you might need.
Here are a few to start you off. -
2. Free articles
There are people who are just happy to be published, and they contribute to sites like EzineArticles, where you can find content written about a very wide range of subjects that you can repurpose for free.
Currently, the site claims to have just over 500,000 ‘expert authors’ providing a huge selection of work that you can freely use.
The content remains on the EzineArticles.com site where you link to it.
We tested the service by conducting a search on the topic of ‘surfboard building’ and it came back with 740 surfing-related articles, although none specifically about making boards.
Less obscure subjects generated even more potential content, and on occasion, the site found exactly the subject matter which was required.
As you might reasonably expect, the quality of these articles often isn’t the best, and they might well appear on multiple other sites that found them before you – but they are free.
EzineArticles isn’t the only source for free articles. Here are five others which are popular, although we suspect that some content will be duplicated across these sites.
- Amazines – Covers everything from Feng Shui to Food & Beverages
- Article Sphere – Will generate an RSS feed for any given subject
- ArticleCity – Plenty of content, and it’s professionally presented
- Articles Factory – A good selection of technical pieces
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3. Copyright-free music
Adding music to a video makes a big difference to how professional it appears, and using commercial soundtracks can be disturbingly expensive.
Luckily there are plenty of free resources that can supply music that doesn’t come with a big price tag, although some might ask for recognition of the artist in the credits or notes.
Here are a few links to get you some music you can use without worrying about copyright infringement. Most are either free or cost very little per track.
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