Many web masters use articles from free content directories to get visitors to their site. This method of generating website content is used mostly important by those who are just getting started with their affiliate marketing careers. They have chosen several niche products, but have no working funds yet to have a website professionally designed and written. However, they NEED to build small niche websites in order to attract visitors and thus begin generating revenue.

Although this can sometimes be the only option for those who are running on a non-existent budget, it's not a method that will effectively build your website or revenue. Short – term Maybe; long-term No. There are a three major reasons why this may be harmful to your new business building efforts.

Problem #1 - Search Engines

Search engines will penalize your site if it has the exact same duplicated content than other sites. The more sites that share your content, the less it will help you achieve good search engine rankings – if fact, the more sites there are that contain the same content – the more it will HURT your rankings.

Good search engine rankings are essential to getting visitors to your site so that they have a chance to click on your affiliate links. If you cannot even get visitors, then will never make an revenue. Like a Catch 22, ey? Your whole point in creating a web site to attract visitors should be original content as that is what Google, Yahoo and the others are looking for – and RANK for. Working on the search engine optimization of your site so that you will eventually be high enough in the results to get customers, should be priority one.

Problem #2 - Getting visitors to click

Although getting your site high on search engine result pages and acquiring site visitors is hard work, unfortunately this is only half of the battle. You also have to be able to convince those visitors to click on your affiliate links! If all your visitors see is the same content they saw on their last search – going to a different site, they will be much less likely to click on your links. Most people want to buy things that are recommended by people that they trust or people that they feel are an expert on the subject material (or product).

If your content is just a duplication of other sites, you will be tagged as someone who doesn't really know what they're talking about and therefore will not look as kindly on your product recommendations. This will reduce the number of website visitors who will be willing to click through.

Problem #3 - Author Bylines

Most free content is only given to you if you agree to place the authors byline under the article (you can get into trouble if you try to use it without following the stipulated rules). This poses a problem because most author bylines include links. When a reader gets done reading a really intriguing article, there is a strong possibility that they will click on the author’s byline link rather than your affiliate links. This is the entire reason why these authors offer free content to begin with, so that they may get their name and links out there to the public. Using this type of content may mean shooting yourself in the foot and losing possible (and profitable) visitors.

Once you put these three problems together, you are looking at a serious decline in revenue simply because you used free website content from article directories. Although it may be the only option for some, if you have the funds to buy (or the knowledge to create) your own original content, then you should definitely go this route.

If you don’t have the finds, however, you will still be better off writing your own content and then hiring professional services once you have made a profit to work with.

If you do still decide to use free content, think carefully and choose the articles you publish on your site carefully. There are thousands – millions – of great articles out there that you can use as long as you are careful.

One Week Marketing, written by Pot Pie Girl, can show you how to avoid these and many other common mistakes that new internet marketers make.