Magiweb’s Top Ten Content Sites

We have a few favorite sites here at Magiweb, because we understand time is money more than ever these days. This is why we want to help deliver the very best to people in as little time as possible, because it frees up the rest of the time for other ventures and projects. What could you do with all your free time if someone could find that content for you?

This is the aim of our “TOP TEN” list. We want to help boil down the massive pool of sites out there that one could choose from. We know that it’s vast, and the options are plentiful.  There are also considerations to be made concerning the authority and scholarly nature of the site as well… which we’ll be covering in another post. Take a look at who we think your best bets are, and a few bonuses thrown in for good measure and see if you agree.

This one’s a bit of a cheat on our part, because we’re not going to tell you who, or which site to choose. What we will do is point you in the right direction to find that for yourself, and explain why it matters.

When you are an internet marketer, or selling absolutely anything online at all, you’ll have certain business ideals you like more than others, you might attend talks, conferences, or parties where you bump elbows with names you recognize from news articles, magazines or even other blog posts. Things these people say may resonate with you and you’ll find yourself a fan of theirs, which means you’ll probably choose to follow that person socially online.

This is where you’ll find some great content, because you already believe in the person who is posting it by and large, and they’ve already decided it’s worthy. This also extends trust from you to that person, who may end up happy to follow you back one day! If you don’t have any industry leaders in mind, or have never been to any sort of get-together where they would have met you, don’t worry. Facebook makes it pretty easy to search for people who are marketers as a profession.  As long as you limit your search terms to something like ‘internet marketing’ or online marketer’ or some version of the same, you can find plenty of people who are leaders in their field.  You can take another step as well, and enter those same search terms in Google. You can even include the niche in Google, like ‘internet marketing, industrial’.

Even if you don’t have your personal favorite now, you’ll soon find one on Facebook or Google who believes as you do, and who inspires you on a personal level.

This tip is also not one we’re giving you because it’s going to be different for everyone. Google your industry, just type in what you’re looking for like… ‘articles for grocers’ or ‘blogs about surfing’ but use whatever industry you are in instead. Google does plenty of the work for you, but if you find you’re not hitting the right results, try using words in different combinations, with quotes for exact hits, and with commas to include more things. This link will explain how.

Google has so many different intelligent algorithms in place that they’re easily the best answer for getting content. The trouble comes with figuring out which is the best of that content however. Google is fantastic at this, but they’re not able to say what is ‘best’ for everyone, in every situation. Sometimes what we’re looking for is content with links to sources, or a study. Sometimes we want that content to agree with our way of thinking. For this reason it’s harder to get everyone individualized search results which seem dynamic in nature.

The reason this comes almost last in our favorites is because that does take time, having to decide which things to include and why. The only way around this is to hire a competent content creator, which can be harder than it sounds.

This site has plenty to offer for free, more if paid of course – but it will find content the same way Google would, but it searches primarily across different sources than Google would. The results are more industry specific, and it also can give you stats on how many shares it gets and and plenty more.

It can be a great place to quickly scan through articles to pick out the very best, but this too will take a small bit of time. It takes less than using Google but still must happen for quality control.

visit BuzzSumo

Not only is Reddit still around, it’s still a great place to get content from – and it has so many sub-levels that it’s impossible to find the ends of it. Try: https://www.reddit.com/r/marketing/ for instance, to see what a subreddit is about marketing. There are things in there for every kind of person – humorous looks at the world of marketing in the form of comics or funny GIFs, or actual article sharing and discussion.

There is no shortage of information to be gleaned within Reddit, but the searching can prove tedious to pore through. Due to its sheer size, it beat out the others on the list in terms of sheer reference material. Search all the subreddits for your industry specific forum, and be prepared to spend an hour or more reading.

It can be invaluable if you are a good skimmer.

visit Reddit

Sometimes what you’re looking to express can’t be said in as many words as a picture might convey. Often the best content comes from a still image paired with a short caption, or a short GIF image.

Images have a great rate of engagement and sharability in social media, so if the pairing works well, your reach will also improve.

To be sure you don’t step all over a sensitive copyright issue, be sure to use limiters in your image searches (under Usage Rights in small letters beneath the tabs under the search box). The ones you need to search with are “labeled for reuse” and “labeled for reuse with modification”. This last one you can only use if you modify the picture in some way.

While you might think that Instagram is only about photos, think again. Try this out!

Instagram is a beautiful place to advertise and not many marketers use it because they cannot imagine their product in visual terms. One quick peek at the articles listed in their news section could have you rethinking your marketing strategy!

It is a fantastic place to find cutting-edge information that is both beautiful and functional.

visit Instagram

This takes a bit of time as well, but can find you a fair bit of good content. If you have a Business Page, be sure you’re Liking other business pages who you follow. When you want to see their content, you can select it on the right hand column of your own page anytime. You can scroll through all the people and businesses you follow on Facebook to find content to share from any of them.  Best part of that?  They appreciate the share as well, and may just Like you back.

You can also search using your Facebook search bar. As with other searches however, it’s best to use fewer words, not more. Limit it to two words to get the best results.

While many other magazines online cover corporations, and businesses most of us can’t even identify with, this one caters to everyone. There is great content to be found about marketing, or any other subject.

Because they’re a widely known, internationally recognized publication, they also provide instant authenticity as well. Sharing from them shows you did your homework!

This takes a bit of time as well, but can find you a fair bit of good content. If you have a Business Page, be sure you’re Liking other business pages who you follow. When you want to see their content, you can select it on the right hand column of your own page anytime. You can scroll through all the people and businesses you follow on Facebook to find content to share from any of them.  Best part of that?  They appreciate the share as well, and may just Like you back.

You can also search using your Facebook search bar. As with other searches however, it’s best to use fewer words, not more. Limit it to two words to get the best results.

Sites like BuzzFeed need to be consumed with caution. Some of the articles have less than shining sources, or none at all and are created with the sole purpose of creating “Buzz” or a commotion about something. This isn’t always the case, and often a viral story can be found or something that is considered breaking news. When this is the case, just be sure you check their sources to make sure it’s accurate.

Because it is updated so often to cater to its massive following, BuzzFeed is a very reliable content engine.

visit Buzzfeed

This gets top spot for the sheer amount of publications it is hosting that are academic in nature, or professional. The same rules apply as with BuzzFeed however, because the people posting may be using it to market to others as well – meaning the information may be misleading or wrong. Be sure to check everything posted.

It still remains one of the very best places to get content even so, with people donating free content reliably.

Sites like BuzzFeed need to be consumed with caution. Some of the articles have less than shining sources, or none at all and are created with the sole purpose of creating “Buzz” or a commotion about something. This isn’t always the case, and often a viral story can be found or something that is considered breaking news. When this is the case, just be sure you check their sources to make sure it’s accurate.

Because it is updated so often to cater to its massive following, BuzzFeed is a very reliable content engine.

visit LinkedIn

Sometimes the best content is that which is accidentally found, and perfect. There are sites like StumbleUpon which asks for a small number of limiters to be answered to help filter the results. It then gives you random content from each category every time you click the button. You can easily share this with others, and it has a high rate of resharing.

YouTube can also be a great place to find content to share, but the videos need to be short enough to be quickly digested. Try using search terms which include “short” or “vine” in it to find results which may be shorter and more easily shared by others.

We gave you our big top ten picks for content, but the trick with most of them is knowing which content stands out from the rest. To do that, you need to know a few things to look for, and that’s where we’re happy to help.

Content needs to be looked at for specific markers. Just a few of the many are:

• Authoritative
• Fun
• Interesting
• Educational
• Scholarly
• Relevant
• Viral

… and there are a ton more. These however are some of the top things to look for when appraising content, but it goes far beyond the subject matter and intent. We’ve written a post about how to ‘vet’ your content which you can read here.

Selected images created with Freepik