What do I mean PLR articles are commodity products?

What I mean is that you could easily interchange one PLR article with another or one source of PLR articles with another, and it would make no difference.

But first, a step back…

What are commodity products?

According to Wikipedia:

A commodity is something for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market. It is a product that is the same no matter who produces it, such as petroleum, notebook paper, or milk. In other words, copper is copper. Rice is rice. Stereos, on the other hand, have many levels of quality. And, the better a stereo is, the more it will cost. The price of copper is universal, and fluctuates daily based on global supply and demand.

In plain English, it means two things:

1. Quality is not an issue when it comes to commodity products – it’s more or less the same across the entire range.
2. The price of a commodity product is only determined by supply and demand.

How this relates to PLR articles

PLR articles are PLR articles are PLR articles. Where you get your PLR articles doesn’t really matter folks, as long as you keep getting articles on topics that you need.

Because come to think of it. The reason why you use PLR articles and don’t write your own content is that you don’t have time to create your own content, lend it your own “voice” and don’t care enough about the topic to do heavy research and probably you don’t care a lot about the quality either.

PLR articles are usually used as filler content.

So yes, it doesn’t matter where you got your PLR articles, as long as they meet some minimum quality standards, and are relevant to the topic of your website.

So that takes care of criteria number one – quality.

The price of PLR articles

So what should PLR articles cost? Exactly what any commodity product would cost – the lowest possible price that will allow the sellers to still make a profit and stay in business.

As the number of people selling PLR articles goes up, their prices should go down.

And seeing the number of people selling PLR articles on the web today, it seems that there are plenty of providers of PLR content.

What it means for you

The more sellers there are for PLR articles, the better for you (as a user of PLR content), because it means prices can only go down.

There will of course be a few providers who do provide unique PLR content, and they will always charge a premium price. You should use these if you want to truly stand out from your competition using strictly PLR material.

But if your goal is to get a site or blog going quickly and filling it up with content to help drive some search engine traffic, you should think about using PLR articles packs that are available at rock bottom prices. You can always add your own unique content later, if the niche proves to be a good source of income.

And speaking of rock bottom prices, why not get some free PLR articles?

So what do you think? Are PLR articles commodity products or not? Do let me know your views by commenting below.

It’s always a good idea to rewrite all the PLR articles that you buy. Here are a few reasons why rewriting PLR articles is such a good thing and why you must do it.

Rewriting increases the value of PLR content

When you rewrite PLR articles, you typically separate it from the rest of the crowd who is using the same content as everyone else. As a result of your rewriting, the content gets your voice, your experiences, and your biases. In other words, you increase the VALUE that the reader is going to get from it.

Rewriting increases the quality of PLR articles

Value goes hand in hand with quality. As the quality of your content increases, so does its value.

When you rewrite an article, you correct any grammatical errors, typos, etc. Rewriting helps you get rid of any errors or omissions that may be present in the articles. When you rewrite, the article gets proofread automatically.

Rewriting helps you bypass the pricing war with other sellers of the same PLR material

Competing with other people on price will never make you any money with PLR.

But when you rewrite your PLR material, you essentially ELIMINATE all competition. And here I use the word “competition” to mean other people who are selling the same material that you would have, prior to rewriting.

Once you rewrite the PLR material, you effectively create a new product out of it. And this new product is yours, and you can charge whatever you want for it.

Rewriting makes your content unique

Unique not just in the sense of being written in different words. I am not talking about using “may” or “should” instead of “must,” for example. I am talking about adding a unique twist to it to make it stand out from the rest.

For example, can you take an article that lists 10 reasons for quitting smoking, and turn it into an article about why you would like your wife (or husband, or boyfriend/girlfriend, etc.) to stop smoking?

Rewriting helps you avoid the duplicate content filter

This is a problem that every single user of PLR articles has to face. Google’s famous duplicate content filter.

But rewriting your articles lets you easily bypass the duplicate content filter, as your article isn’t a duplicate any more.

Rewriting lets you reuse the same essential content in a variety of niches

Wouldn’t that be great? Write once, and use in a variety of niches?

Take the example of the quitting smoking article I mentioned above:

• Use it in the quit smoking niche
• Rewrite a bit and use it again in the staying healthy niche (or in any of the multiple sub-niches in the health niche – heart, lungs, blood pressure, cancer, and so on)
• Rewrite a bit and use it in the parenting niche (why you should discourage your teen from smoking)
• Rewrite again and use it in the personal development/self improvement niche
• Rewrite yet again and use it in the relationship niche (why you don’t want to date someone who smokes)

Get the idea?

Rewriting helps you “splinter” your content for different audiences and position it in different ways.

Rewriting helps you optimize the PLR articles for search engines

Some PLR articles may already be optimized for search engines, but what if you are targeting a different keyword? When you rewrite the article, you can optimize it as well. If the article is already optimized, you can tweak the optimization to target a different keyword.

Rewriting content makes it easier to obtain backlinks

Let’s face it. No one is ever going to link to a page with content that is already there on hundreds of other sites or blogs. If you want links, your content MUST be unique.

More links = higher search engine rankings and more traffic, so it’s absolutely critical for your business to rewrite your articles.

As you can see, there are plenty of reasons why you must rewrite PLR articles before using them.

Do you have any reasons of your own to share? Something that I missed? Please add your comment below.

Have you ever wanted to buy PLR articles, but hesitated because you were worried about duplicate content issues?

I understand how you feel. And I  understand your skepticism. I would feel the same way in your position.

Publishing PLR articles on your website just the way you got them can really affect your search engine rankings. And if you try to submit them to article directories, your article may get rejected. Article directories just don’t allow duplicate content.

So what’s the solution? As it turns out, there are several ways you can create unique content using PLR articles. Read on to learn more…

Combine two or more PLR articles to create a single unique article

This one is easy. Just take a portion from each article and put them together. Maybe add a few sentences here and there to keep the flow smooth.

Combing articles to create a unique one has an additional advantage that you can use this technique to create longer articles.

Try to look for a common theme. For example, if you take an article about Windows, another about Mac, and yet another about Linux, you can combine them and write an article that gives an overview of all the different operating systems.

Split an article into two or more longer articles

If you can combine articles, you can split them too, right?

Well, yes, technically. But then you will have to do some writing of your own.

What you can do is take a paragraph or an idea from an article and expand it into an article in its own right. For example, if you take an article about the top five ways of doing something, you can probably write a separate article for each of the methods covered in the original article.

Takes a bit of work, but hey, you end up with more number of articles than you started with.

Rewrite the article (or get someone else to do it)

If all your attempts at combining or splitting the articles to create unique content have failed, the least you can do is simply rewrite all of the PLR articles that you have.

Simply change the headline, the first paragraph, the ending, and a few sentences here and there. Should take you just a few minutes per article.

Or if you don’t want to spend the time rewriting the articles yourself, you can also outsource it to someone else on the cheap. Sites like elance or rentacoder give you access to a lot of writers who can rewrite your PLR articles.

Translate to some other language

Who says your PLR article must be used in the same language you purchased it in? There are millions of people online whose native language is something other than English. By translating your article in their language, you are not only creating unique content, but doing these people a great service.

Just be sure to ask a native speaker of the language to do the translation, and don’t use some online tool for it, or your content will look like gibberish!

Convert to audio or video

Converting your PLR articles to audio or video format will not only increase their perceived value, they will also give you a chance to make them unique as you go, without having to spend a lot of time.

You can do this with very basic equipment if you want to. No need to get too fancy. Just get a simple headphone with a mic, and a webcam, and a recording software, and you are good to go.

Convert the article to audio, and then back to text

Just put the article in front of you, start recording, and keep reading the article. But instead of repeating what’s in the article verbatim, you can keep saying each sentence in a different way than is written.

You can even expand each sentence into stories or examples, and add your own perspective here and there.

Once you have finished recording, you can transcribe it back and get a text version. If you are too lazy to type, or don’t have the time, you can use one of the transcribing services online.

Use the PLR Article Toolkit software (available from plr-packs.com)

The PLR Article Toolkit software that is a part of this Huge collection of PLR and MRR products can let you create unique content from your PLR articles packs in a matter of minutes or even seconds.

The toolkit will insert random snippets of text (that you choose) into your articles to make them completely unique. You can use this feature to insert quotes from people in your niche, or links, or bits of code, or anything else that you want.

And you can even point the software to a directory full or PLR articles, and it will automatically create web pages out of them. Just like that.

Read more about this cool software at: http://www.plr-packs.com/huge-plr-pack/

Hopefully that gives you plenty of ideas to create unique content from your PLR articles packs. Do you have any ideas of your own that you would like to share?

Private Label Rights articles are a great compromise between writing your own articles and publishing someone else’s articles. You can just write your name on the articles and you have content for your blog or website. You can even get articles for free or else very cheaply.

Of course there is a common problem that many people find with PLR articles: Duplicate Content.

Hundreds if not thousands of people will have the same articles that you have; only they will put their name on it. This means that many other people will see your articles and think of them as junk because your content is not unique and not original. This means that your PLR articles are useless, so you cannot use them for content on your website or blog.

But there is a way to solve this. Instead of just taking the PLR articles as they are and just posting them on your website or blog, you obviously need to alter them in some way so that they are unique and truly are your own content.

The easiest way to change them is known as “spinning” them. This means taking the article and changing the wording and some of the structure so that it is completely unique. Yes, it will have the exact same message as the original article, but it will be unique in the fact that it is worded differently than the thousands of other articles on the internet from the people who obtained the same article as you did.

This means that you will now have unique articles that you can post on your blog or website and people will see them and not view them as duplicate content.

Another thing you can do is while you are spinning your article you can remove parts that you do not agree with and add your own ideas into the article, making it even more unique.

I personally use an article spinner to spin my articles for me so I can save even more time, and you can use them as well. There are some free ones that you can find, although I have found them to be generally more difficult to use and not as effective.

But essentially you just need to remember that if you are using PLR content that you need to alter it so that it is not the same as thousands of others on the internet and you will not have the problem of duplicate content like many other people run into.

This is a guest post by Shawn Horwood. Shawn Horwood is an internet and affiliate marketer who has spent hundreds of hours determining which methods of internet and affiliate marketing actually work and which ones do not. Now he offers much of what he has learned for free, including information on choosing affiliate programs, generating traffic, website creation, search engine optimization and other topics related to affiliate marketing.

Here are several ways you can use PLR articles to make money.

1. Use PLR articles to create web pages
2. Post them to article directories
3. Use them to create Squidoo lenses
4. Post them on your blog
5. Post them as comments on other people’s blogs (especially those that don’t use rel=”nofollow” in their links, or those that you think will drive a lot of traffic to your site)
6. Use them to make posts in forums related to your niche
7. Use them to fill up your auto-responder series, or as content for your newsletter
8. Use them to compile or create reports or e-books that you can sell or give away, either as a standalone product or as a bonus with another product
9. Use them to create a membership site
10. Use them to create reports or e-books that you put inside the members area of your website (combine 8 and 9 above)
11. Use them to create audio reports or podcasts – just read the articles aloud and edit the resulting audio
12. Use them as idea joggers – to get ideas for topics you would like to write about, either in your blog or your web site
13. Use them to start sites in niches that you know nothing or almost nothing about
14. Use them for “bum marketing”
15. Use them to create offline newsletters (that your customers get in their mailbox)

Hope that gives you a few ideas. Enjoy!