Freelance
Writers' Series
Career & Business
Development Help
Is PLR Content
Dead? What is PLR Content? What are PLR Articles? PLR is an acronym for Private Label Rights content. It is content sold to many different parties. Many businesses are built around the PLR content model. For example, have you ever seen ads on the net that sell you on the concept of starting your own niche site? They promise you a website already loaded with pre-written content. The vast majority of these sites use PLR articles. The idea being that you will take over the site and build it out with fresh, unique content on a regular basis. Many never do, of course. Read more on how to make money with PLR content as explained in the article Turn $1/Day into an Online Empire: How to Make Money with Minisites. Why PLR Content is Extremely Popular Most PLR content is written for and by web entrepreneurs who run what’s known as VREs (virtual real estate) businesses. They may operate as many as a few hundred sites. Even if they only have 20 or 30, that’s still a massive amount of content that’s needed. These sites make money by showing ads from programs like Google AdSense or affiliate programs from affiliate operations like Clickbank. The reason this is such an appealing business model is because “all” the site owner has to do is drive traffic to the site. All is in quotation marks because that’s the hardest part of any internet business. And, that’s where the need for loads of content comes in. Why would someone waste their time on a business like this you may be thinking. Consider this: if a site owner has 25 sites and each one is making $5 a day, that’s $125 day. Keep adding sites and you can see why a lot of web entrepreneurs like this business model. But, keeping the sites up to date with fresh content is a big chore. And, this is why there’s such a huge demand for PLR content (and PLR content sellers). How/Why PLR Content Providers are Discriminated Against Following though is why there is a lot of discrimination against PLR content providers. I’ve experienced it firsthand. 3 Reasons PLR Content Providers are Discriminated Against 1. Article Directory Discrimination: If you write and sell PLR content, many article directories are not your friend. They won’t let you link to your PLR site – even if the link you provide is in the proper place – ie, the resource box of your article. As article marketing is one of the top ways to market your PLR website and its services, this means a powerful avenue of marketing is shut down to PLR content providers. PLR content sites get about as much respect as porn and hate sites on the web as for as how they’re treated by some article directories. Hyprocrisy at Work? This smacks of a bit of hypocrisy to me, as article directories are basically PLR content providers. How? Well, they offer free content to millions of website owners, e-marketers, newsletter publishers, bloggers, etc. And, they make money off of this “free content” because many article directories are monetized via ads from Google AdSense and similar programs. Hmmm . . . could article directory owners be policing the web for their own benefit? 2. Clients Don’t Want PLR Content: Many clients simply don’t want PLR content; they want original content. For me, this is completely understandable and is the law of supply and demand at work. The thing is, many want to pay PLR rates though. However, that’s a discussion for another article. 3. The Duplicate Content Penalty: Many clients worry about the possibility of being banned from powerful search engines like Google. This is what some attribute to what’s known as the duplicate content penalty. If you don’t know what this is, read this article on the duplicate content penalty. It does one of the best jobs of explaining it so that it makes sense. And, it also happens to mirror the experiences I’ve had as an article marketer. Now that you understand what PLR content is and why it’s not favored by many, I’ll give you my personal take on it and how to use it effectively. Why the Death of PLR Content is a Good Idea The web is progressing to the point where surfers no longer want regurgitated content that can be found on 50 other sites. They want unique, specific content. And, this is why the death of PLR content is a good idea. As the vast majority of PLR articles are so generic as to be practically useless, having less of this on the web can only serve to better search results. End users will
get a lot less crap when they search. But, as an SEO writer who produces PLR
content, I hate to see its demise on the other hand. Following is why. Why the Demise of PLR Content is a Bad Idea PLR content has two good uses, in my opinion.(i) It allows new web entrepreneurs to get up and going quickly. If you want to start a website, but have no writing skills or tend to procrastinate, starting with a PLR site is a good way to get up and going quickly. Then, you can build it out, adding original content on an ongoing basis. While many may take issue with starting a web business in this manner, I know from personal experience that the thing that stops many from achieving their dreams is that they simply fail to start. With PLR content, you can have a complete website in minutes. All of that frustrating, beginning, behind-the-scenes work is already done. This allows you to delve right into what you do best – building the site out with original content, marketing it, creating new products, etc. (ii) It
allows established web entrepreneurs to stay on track with their marketing:
What I mean by this is, using a PLR article every once in a while is one of the
best timesavers you can rely on.
3 Keys to Successfully Using PLR Content As a freelance writer and web entrepreneur who publishes my own blog, website and numerous ebooks, let me be the first to say, I’m a big proponent pf original content. I write all of my own content and don’t use PLR articles on my sites. But for those web entrepreneurs who want to, the pros can outweigh the cons, if you follow these rules: (i) Use Well-Written PLR Articles: As previously mentioned, many PLR articles are so generic as to be useless. It’s obvious that they’re stuffed with a certain keyword phrase and are only written as search engine bait. Don’t use these types of articles. Use PLR content that is well written and useful. You’ll have the best luck finding this from PLR content providers who only sell to a limited number of buyers.
It's the same as using a well-written article from a article marketing directory. But, if you start to use PLR content on a regular basis, you can hurt your internet marketing efforts because you lose your voice, your credibility and the trust you’ve built with your customers.
Just this simple intro injects your voice into the “conversation” of a PLR article. It maintains a personal connection with your audience, which keeps the trust flowing – and hence the sales. PLR content is the black sheep of the web. But, in my opinion, there is a place for it, if used correctly. Need
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