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Public domain material, what is it, why do we need it, and where do we get it from?
Not all of us have bottomless pits of money in the bank that we can afford to give away. It is with great pleasure that I can give you this information about the art of finding, and using Public Domain information. So without further ado let’s dive in.
Content is king, you will probably have heard that quite a few times now. And those that said it are right too. Without the valuable addition of good quality content on your web site to generate free organic traffic, then your web site will resemble the Marie Celeste, the famous ship that was found drifting with no one aboard in the 1800’s.
What if I told you there is a humongous supply of, free, good quality, content sitting just a few key clicks away from you, just waiting for you to pick it up, and what’s more, you can modify it any way that you like. you can even re title it with you as the author. Even better is the fact that the material that you will be using is already laid out in the right order. the only thing you might have to do is reword it in modern parlance.
Whether you use the material to create free information packages to give away to your visitors, or to create new products, there is one reason why you need top quality materials most of all, and that is to generate free organic traffic to your site. Perhaps I should start with a little intro into types of web sites. There are three basic types of web sites, sales sites that have very little information, e.g. Dixons, Argos, or Amazon. And the information sites sites such as, Wikipedia, or The Gutenberg Project, Basically, sales sites have to pay for their advertising to get anywhere, whereas Informational sites such Wikipedia rely on free ranking in the search engines. And then there is the third type which is a cross between the two.
If you are aiming to sell things then your aim should be to create a mix of the first two. The more informative your site can be then the better the placement within the search engines, but this all takes effort. And this is where the use of, high quality, royalty free Photographs, books, and even magazine articles, comes in.
This is content you could use for writing your own newsletters, creating an e-book, or for building up your blog to generate your business and personal image. The beauty of a lot of the work involved is that it is nothing more than copy, and paste. Very often you could get your website noticed with just a short session of cut and paste.
Great quality content is the very life blood of any successful website that is looking to generate free organic traffic, after all, who has the time to write a large amount of content? And who has the money to pay bloggers and freelancers at $50 to $100 for a 700 word article, to write it all for you, especially when the content you really need, might end up with around 1,000 to 3,000 words. And if you are thinking of using the free e-zine articles then you have to remember that you have to publish them ‘as is’ with no modifications.
But it’s not just about splashing a shed load of Public Domain content onto your site. You must have identified the niche that you are in properly to ensure that the articles you will be using are suitable. Either that or rewrite them to suit.
Two good places to start searching for Public Domain materials is at Project Gutenberg, and Ibiblio.
However. A very important point to note about this type of materials is this. Not all material that you will come across on these sites are automatically free to use. You must prove it is in the Public Domain before using any of the materials, or you could get into very serious trouble. There are strict rules as to what is, or is not. In the United States it is anything before 1923. But in the United Kingdom it is 70 years after the author’s death.
When you are looking for status verification of the material you plan to use, one of the places to go to is Stanford University in the United States. Just enter http://collections.stanford.edu/copyrightrenewals and start fishing around.
If you have not started a blog yet then I recommend that you set one up in your own name. It really is easy to apply once you get the hang of it.
I hope that you have found this information helpful to you, and wish you all well in your future efforts.
All the best to you all.
Viv.
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