Is Writing Articles For Free Worthwhile

Writing articles for free may seem counterintuitive, but it can be worth doing. Certain situations lend themselves to this including: when you’re just starting out and trying to build a portfolio of articles to show potential customers; when you want to build backlinks to your website; and when you want to post an article in hopes of earning ad revenue.
For writers just starting out in their online writing careers, writing articles for free can help you build your portfolio. You might write articles on speculation and then offer them to potential clients. In fact, many magazine writers do this. They’ll target a few different publications and send articles for the magazines’ consideration. Some magazines will consider unsolicited submissions while others require queries first. Websites work a little differently. Many sites want user-generated content and prominently post a “submit your article” link. Some sites will even pay you a small amount for your contributions.
Writing articles and submitting them to article directories is a technique known as “article marketing.” When you write and submit articles to article directories, you will not get paid for your articles and the articles will be available to countless publishers for free. Your article may appear on hundreds of websites and ezines and you won’t see a penny! So why would you want to do this? Backlinks to your website or blog. Article directories allow you to include links to your website or blog in the resource box section found at the end of the article. Not only will this help people reading your free article find your site, it also builds credibility with Google which in turn can lead to improved search engine traffic.
Another reason writers write for free is to take advantage of ad revenue sharing opportunities. For example, if you’ve enabled Google ads on your blog, your blog posts have the potential to earn you some money. In fact, you likely write your blog posts for free anyway, right? Taken to the next level is writing articles and submitting them to popular Web content sites that share ad revenue. Though you may have submitted the article for free, the article has the potential to earn you money based on page views and ad clicks both now and in the future.
Writing articles for free can be worthwhile if you know why you’re doing it and what the benefits are. This doesn’t mean you should write articles for free for anyone who asks you to. Like anything else, you are writing articles for a specific reason. That reason may be for income, it may be for backlinks, it may be for exposure, or it may be for long term residuals. Know what you are writing a given article for and reap the benefits, whatever they may be.