Making Private Label Rights Articles Work for You

Private Label Rights (PLR) articles are a popular choice among many time-starved Internet publishers. What could be easier than gaining access to dozens or even hundreds of articles at the click of a button? There are a lot of services out there offering PLR articles. Some offer monthly memberships where you get access to “X” amount of new articles each month, while others allow you to purchase articles in topic-specific bundles on a one-time basis. Many offer significant bonus packages as an incentive to try their service. (I personally prefer being able to buy PLR articles on an “as-needed” basis vs. via a subscription – if you are the same way, be sure to check out EasyPLR.com).

As with most things, there is a right way – and a wrong way – to incorporate Private Label Rights articles into your Content Marketing campaign.

By now, you probably already know the wrong way to use Private Label Rights articles. Simply adding them to your site (or worse, submitting them to article directories) “as is” is a really bad idea for a number of reasons.  If you try to resubmit one of these articles under your own name (or pen name)  “as is,” you will most likely run into plagiarism issues and risk getting your account terminated (and having all your other articles on that site pulled).

Beyond that, I can almost guarantee that the Private Label Rights articles you have received have already been indexed by the search engines – so even if they are accepted by article directories – you won’t get any SEO benefit from them. Same with posting PLR articles in their current state on your website. They won’t help draw search engine traffic for this reason. (Although they may add value to your readers by offering more relevant content while you are fleshing out your site).

Plus, there is the whole ethical thing about claiming work as yours when you don’t have exclusive rights to it.

However, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Private Label Rights articles are a great way to infuse your own writing with inspiration.  I often pull ideas from 2 or more articles on the same topic to come up with something completely unique and fresh. This can be tricky as it can still take a fair amount of time to accomplish.

I know of some publishers who simply “massage” the articles by rewriting the original paragraph and tweaking it a bit here or there. I personally would be careful with this approach – and wouldn’t rely on CopyScape alone to check my work. I heard Chris Knight (publisher of EzineArticles.com) say in an interview that they pull two complex sentences at random from the body of each article and run a Google search on them. So, if you only ‘moderately tweak’ an article and leave a number of sentences from the original version – there is a very good chance it will be caught.  If you do want to try this approach, I recommend you place the article on your own site where it might get indexed and offers value to your readers even if it doesn’t.

Other ways to tweak PLR articles into something fresh and new is to translate the content into entirely new formats.  For example, pull tidbits from a few articles to create a compelling FAQ page – or you could tweak each article and repurposing the content into either an audio or videocast. (This site is very 2005 in that it doesn’t YET incorporate either audio or video – but I promise I am very aware of the how much I need to spice things up! )If you are already using audio and/or video on your site – imagine how easy it would be to convert PLR articles into something even more compelling with the technology you are already using.

One final thought – when using PLR articles (or any information from an unknown source) – do yourself and your readers a favor.  Verify the accuracy the information presented. I recently opened a PLR article on real estate that started with “The real estate market is red hot right now…”  Further checking showed the article was written in 2005 – but was sent as part of a subscription in May 2009.  (Yes, I canceled that subscription on the spot).  So, consider how ‘evergreen’ your topic is and be aware of when the article was written and what might have changed in the world since then.  Also, a quick check of facts will help save your hard-earned credibility with your audience in the long run.

Til Next Time,

PS I rambled on too long about PLR articles to dig into hiring ghostwriters. Be sure to stop back Monday for more on that topic.  Or just sign up for the RSS feed and have it delivered to you automatically.  Have a great weekend!

PSS If you are looking for a great source of PLR content – be sure to check out EasyPLR.com. This site offers articles, eCourses, and special reports on a wide range of topics.  All packs are sold in limited quanitites without requiring any ongoing subscription.  You can get started immediately for as little as $5!  Check it out!