Shifting Affiliate Strategies
It would make sense that since I sell coffee products on eBay I should have a blog about coffee, which I do. But once again Build A Niche Store was the main reason I started my blog called The Coffee Place, it wasn’t selling on eBay. I also wanted to see if I could put to good use some of the hundreds of PLR (Private Label Rights) articles I had loitering around in my hard drive. Yes I paid for them as part of a “buy out option” when I exited from the monthly PLR program I was part of.
I’m sure when used correctly in the hands of an experienced Affiliate Marketer, PLR articles can serve a useful purpose, but I have a tough time “publishing” these orphaned articles I know are already plastered all over the Internet. Where PLR articles do serve a purpose is helping me in the generation of content ideas. Once in a blue moon I will open them up and take ideas from a few different PLR articles and combine them into my own article. Most of the time I just stare at these $4.00 per hour gems and think to myself, I don’t want anyone to think I wrote that.”
As I stated in my last blog post I am re-thinking my strategy to earning money with affiliate Marketing. My thinking is shifting from monetization to content and traffic generation and from BANS over to blogs. Blogs fit the bill for me in many ways and seem to suit my personality. With all that said I think I may pay for some help to better learn how to blog correctly.
It’s off to find a blogging mentor to show me the ropes and get me out of affiliate ground zero.
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Comments
It’s funny Ron, as I just said in my most recent post, when you’re beginning to learn affiliate marketing it’s easy to fall prey to “fast” methods.
I’m sure PLR articles will have a practical place somewhere in the affiliate world when I have the expertise to use them so they coincide with my own internal belief structure, but for the life of me I can’t seem to feel good about posting that stuff. I’ve done it a few times, especially over at http://www.qassia.com/ to get some credit for them.
Hey I’m sure there are great affiliate marketers using PLR articles in newsletters or other communication channels that swear by them. To each his own.
Mark
From the pov of fast tracking research for ones own writing, some PLR has value… Ie, if the author truly does have some skill in the field, and the research is solid. In fact, I think their could be a substantial business opportunity if one were to go after that market. Way back when as a corp dude, we used a very spendy service, which would scan all the news of the week, and then summarize the key points based upon key words we would submit to them. It had a lot of value… instead of reading hundreds of citations, the reports we would get would allow us to hone in one the three or four which were really critical in our market. (there is an opportunity to use google reader, and $4/hr PLR creators and build a business around it.. I think even SOHO outfits might find such a thing of value)
I also think, if one is looking only to fast track making a few bucks, rather than growing a sustainable long term business, PLR can add value. In some cases, an opportunity may only be valid for a few months, or even a few weeks. Thus, to use PLR content for a focused site to hit such an opportunity while its hot, might make a lot of sense. One example I can think of, is where a fellow posted detailed instructions on how to make $100 a day online. Those who jumped in on day 1, did well… by the end of 3 weeks, it was over. Thats $2000 for roughly 4 hours of work, and a $200 investment. To individually generate content for such a project, would not work… some tried, and by the time they were ready, the opportunity was gone, ie they made $2-$3 a day.
Great points and examples Ron. So you were a corp dude too huh?
If a corp decided they needed to use PLR content and told me to use it for a marketing campaign I would have bit the proverbial bullet and done what I was told. Voluntarily deciding for myself to use PLR content is much more difficult.
PLR is a pain to come across, and its pretty easy to see right through the poorly written articles, or if one has some skills in the field, shred them entirely, as the author in most cases has no idea of what they are talking about. Talk about a good way to kill the credibility of ones authorship if used verbatim, yet folks do so all the time.
I sort of think this will end up being a Darwin thing… the folks currently crafting PLR articles at $4/hour who know what they are doing, will likely no longer settle for $4/hour. Those who don’t will continue in that domain, and their articles even if in mass, sooner of later will get penalized, no matter how much search engine gaming goes on.