Free content. It's what all of us webmasters want, right? Not only do we want it for free, but we want it to be original. Content just for our site. Oh, we'll take reprints of articles or reviews if we can't get original free content, but what we really want is people to write content for us and only us.

And why not? Good original content does well in the search engines and draws traffic which we can convert to sales or to clicks (for those who want to earn an income from Google Adsense type programs).

The question is how to get people to write content for us.

The main thing you need to realize is people won't write for your site because you want them to. If I'm a writer, I couldn't care less what you want. Everything I do is done to get something I want. You're the same way. We all are.

What you need to do is figure out how writing content for your site can be beneficial for the writer. Think about their needs. Think about how you can get what you want--original content--while helping them get something they want.

Chances are writers want money. Even offering $5 might be enough to entice some to write an article. However, you'll probably get more and better articles by offering someone the chance to win $250. Consider a contest. Offer the winner a $250 gift certificate. Let them know winning is dependent on the quality of the submission. People will put far more effort into something where there's a chance of winning $250 (especially if it's based on merit) than on getting $5. In return for this $250 prize, you may receive 100 articles you can use on your site indefinitely. 100 pages of quality content at $2.50 a page. Not bad considering there are Google Adsense topics where you can make that much with a single click. If you have a popular site, or promote your contest well, you may get 500 entries. Or 1000.

Ok, but what if you don't have $250? You're just starting out, and you can barely afford hosting much less to run a contest. Consider revenue sharing. Offer your writers a cut of future profits. Browse around epinions.com. Look at the thousands of reviews they have received all because they've given everyone who writes reviews a share of the earnings.

If you can't or won't implement a contest or a revenue sharing system, the least you can do is offer your writers free exposure. Give them a link on any article they submit. On a higher traffic, higher PageRank site, this may entice people to submit. The only problem with this option is you'll have a hard time getting original articles instead of reprints unless you have a very high PageRank.

If you have a reseller account, maybe you can offer someone free hosting for a certain number of articles per month. If you have a high traffic site, maybe you can offer them free advertising dependent on the number of articles they submit.

You may think of other ways to get original content that I haven't listed. Once you start thinking about how you can help your writers achieve their goals, you'll get a lot further with them. Good luck.