Part 17: An Introduction to Private Label Articles

Private label articles are a huge buzz at the moment. And with good reason. In fact, the buzz surrounding private label articles, in particular has been around now for the last couple of years. And it is getting louder!

Some people forecast that private label articles would quickly go out of fashion, but there is absolutely no sign that this is happening. If anything, they are getting more and more popular.

The good ones, that is.

As with anything that is effectively outsourced, you do have to be vary careful that you are buying quality – there is a lot of trash out there and is very much a ‘buyer beware’ market.

Having said that, I’ll tell you about the place I rank as the #1 source for quality private label articles a little later on.

Why is private label so popular?

The search engines are on the lookout for sites that contain minimal or poor content and will de-index them when they find them. That’s because in the competitive world of providing search results, and especially now that so many of the major search engine companies are answerable to shareholders, it is no longer enough to just give customers pages of sites to look at. The *relevance* of those sites has become the watchword.

As a result, most of the search engines – taking their lead from Google – are looking for a particular quality of content on the pages that they serve up in their search results.

Among many other things, they are looking for:

* the number of words on the page
* the relevance of each ‘block’ of those words to the overall keyword that the page is indexed for
* well-written ‘human readable’ content
* confidence that the page has a purpose in its own right – even if all ads are removed
* the presence of secondary keywords and phrases that complement the primary keyword of the page (this is called Latent Semantic Indexing and my special too – at http://www.keywordlsispy.com – will find those words that the search engines love for you at the click of a button. You can even take a free trial right there on that page.)
* a logical and useful linking plan

As you can see, the content of each page of your site has never been more important!

Beyond these ‘on page’ factors, the search engines are even more interested in the quality (and number) of sites that link back to your page. But that is beyond the scope of this book to go into in any detail.

Back in the day (long before AdSense was even dreamed of) the phrase ‘Content is King’ was on every Internet marketer’s lips. But good content was hard to come by and writing your own was time consuming at best, and downright impossible for many people.

Then came AdSense and although a few voices in the wilderness kept saying that content was king, the reality was that for many online marketers content became an irrelevance.

It was far easier to build quick and dirty websites with thousands of pages based on lists of keywords, where the only ‘content’ was scraped listings from the search engines themselves. Website generation programs proliferated, ranging from a few dollars to many thousands, that created these essentially content-free websites at the click of a button.

Making money from AdSense sites was easy.

Until the search engines cottoned on to what was happening and started to fight back by de-indexing every ‘spam’ website that they could find.

So the wheel turned full circle, and content dusted off its crown again.

The difference now is that with so many people needing fresh, effective, well written content, a whole industry has grown up to provide it.

If you were to go to a ghost writer you may be lucky and get articles written for you for around $6 each. If you wanted to build a website with 40 pages, that means you’d need to spend about $240 on content.

Which, if you are hoping to build a series of ten or more websites, could soon mount up to being a large outlay of cash!

Private Label neatly gets around the problem.

Now, one person can go to the ghost writer and pay for a set of articles and then resell those articles to 100, 200 or more people for a fraction of the cost. Everyone is happy!

* The ghost writers are happy because they’ve never had so much work
* The people commissioning the articles are happy because their initial outlay can be multiplied many times
* The article purchasers are happy because they get packages of articles at a fraction of what it would have cost to have them commissioned
* The search engines are happy because the articles become part of content-rich themed websites that satisfy their searchers far better than the empty spam sites ever could
* And, hopefully, your site’s visitors are happy because they are presented with interesting and relevant content.

I’ve belonged to all kinds of private label article membership sites over the last few years and have come to the conclusion that there is only one that I can consistently recommend for well written, general articles that are supplied to a limited number of people (each group in the membership site has a maximum of 200 members – and as less than 1 in 20 will use the material effectively, that means minimal competition for you). That one is PLRpro – http://www.plrpro.com/martin – where you can join for a 14-day trial period for just $1!

[Incidentally, some people have been confused by the $1 trial price - although the site does show the normal price, when you get to the final payment page, the $1 price will be charged.]

Does it matter that everyone has the same articles?

Not at all.

In the first place there is still no real evidence that search engines penalize duplicate content in the way that was once thought. They do dislike seeing the same article appear on multiple pages of the same domain, but at present, don’t seem to worry much about it appearing on different  domains.

Secondly, there is a lot you can do to make the articles you use different. My Keyword LSI Spy tool will help you greatly there.

And let’s be brutally honest – most people are not using the private label materials they have access to, so you are not in competition with 200 other people who theoretically get the same articles that you do. The chances of more than a handful actually putting them anywhere online is slim.

Private label articles are a great way to make money online with the minimum of effort and in the next installment of the Foolproof, No-Nonsense, Kickstart Guide to making Money Online I’ll tell you about many of the different and creative ways people use them.

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Part 16: Copywriting 101.

We all live in a communication age. Never has it been more important to be able to put our points across in as compelling and persuasive a way as possible. Yet the idea of writing a sales letter, job application, report or internal memo can still fill us with dread.

Where should we start? Where should we finish, and what should go in between?

There are many instructional guides, often based on the four-letter mnemonic AIDA, which stands for get Attention,  create Interest, stimulate Desire, generate Action. It sounds good, and I have used the process myself countless times. But, if you imagine a whole sales letter to be an elephant, then AIDA only breaks the writing of it down into smaller elephants.

But how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

I have often thought that a new process is required that takes each step and breaks it down into much smaller, easily digested pieces.

Well, I am grateful to Peter Thomson, businessman, writer and motivational speaker, for bringing the WISCDAR process to my attention.

In this, each step is smaller and more defined than in AIDA, so that anyone can follow the ‘rules’ and write compelling and selling copy.

Let’s get down to what WISCDAR is all about.

1. W. This stands for wavelength. You can’t sell anything to anyone if you are not seen to be on the same wavelength. So that is how a good sales letter should start, either in the headline or the first few lines.

Have you noticed how many sales letters that you have responded to, start with the word ‘You’?

Read that line again. It is a ‘wavelength’ heading. It starts with ‘you’ (have, can and do are all acceptable prefixes), asks a question that only has a positive response, and implies that the writer has noticed the same thing. We are bonding already.

2. I. Interest. Now for some detective work. In order for you to spark interest in your reader, you must first understand what it is that interests them. If you are selling a product, you must understand precisely who is likely to buy it, and what buttons they have that you can press.

For example, take the subhead:  ‘You will easily clear your acne in under a week with the secrets contained in this book.’

If the reader is a person who suffers badly from acne, or who needs a clear complexion for a special party in a week’s time, the words are compelling and will almost certainly make them read on.

However, if the reader already has great skin, then he or she is unlikely to be interested in the offer.

Understand who your primary audience is, invent a ‘typical’ reader in your own mind, and write to that person individually.

Interest is a personal thing, so keep your writing very personal.

3. S. Sell benefits

This is the point at which so many writers get very confused. Instead of selling the benefits (or, more properly, explaining the benefits), they list the features. The difference is vital: features are what the product/idea/concept IS. Benefits are what it DOES for the user.

At this stage in your letter, you have established that you are on the same wavelength as the reader and have begun to spark an interest in their mind. Now you want to fan the spark into a flame.

You do that by listing all the wonderful things that the product will do for THEM personally. All the benefits they will derive from buying into it.

Don’t underestimate this part, it is one of the most important of all.

4. C. Add Conviction

Okay, you’ve bonded, sparked some interest and fanned the flames. Now is the time to bring on the witnesses. Testimonials are all-powerful because they say what your letter can’t – that other real people have put up their money and are delighted with the results.

Humans are generally pack hunters. Only a few people like to be out front breaking new ground. The vast majority like to follow along and blend in with the crowd.

Testimonials are your product’s crowd. They show that someone else has already taken the risk, and the result was good. They add conviction to your claims, and provide the evidence that convinces the reader.

You may not have any testimonials yet if your product is very new. How then can you add conviction?

Simple. By removing the obstacles that would otherwise put the pack hunter out in the cold. Offer a free trial or sample. Stress the cast-iron money-back guarantee. Ask for the reader’s help and reward them with a no- risk deal.

5.  D. Desire

You have already got the flame of interest burning brightly with all the benefits and evidence. Now is the time to feed the fire pure oxygen so that an inferno starts to rage inside the reader’s belly.

This is the point where you make them want to buy your idea or product more than anything else. They must be stirred into action.

How do you do this? There are several ways.

The first involves motivating the reader. Here you can either explain the negatives that can happen to them if they don’t follow your course of action, or you can detail the positives that will occur if they do. Let me give you two examples of how that could work:

‘How much longer will your competitors outsell you, when with an intensive training session from Martin Avis, your sales team can achieve record results?’

‘Imagine what your boss will say when, after an intensive training session with Martin Avis, your sales team achieves record results.’

Positive or negative motivations are powerful desire-building tools. Use them when you can justify the claim. Never overstep the bounds of credibility.

The second method is about adding value. Bonuses are everywhere, because they work. The best are unique items that they can’t otherwise get hold of. It is easy to create a special report that is perfect for the target market, but that is only available to buyers of the product. The higher the perceived value, the better.

Thirdly, use powerful language. Adjectives and adverbs are sales words. Use them liberally to make your message exciting and stimulating.

‘This product is the best book on the market and it will help you make a lot of money’ might be accurate, but isn’t this more compelling: ‘This amazing product is the best-kept secret on the market today. It is absolutely guaranteed to generate a massive flow of income right into your waiting pocket.’

Which one would fuel your furnace of desire.

6. A. Action

Far too many sales letters fall flat because they don’t tell the reader what to do next. It sounds patronizing to spell out the entire order process, but it is vital that you do it.

You have to ask for the order, but ask for it in great detail. By breaking down the ordering/decision process into easy to manage steps, you are removing obstacles in the reader’s mind.

Remember that elephant? Completing an order is another one. Make the process a step-by-step simple progression and you will pull the customer along with you.

Whatever the desired result of your communication, don’t assume that the reader is at the same stage as you are. They may still be kicking and screaming. But hold their hand and they will come quietly.

Don’t fear rejection: if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

7. R. Results.

The final part of your communication is to explain clearly what the results of them taking action will be. For example, ‘your book will be sent right away by email so that you can start reading, and making money, immediately.’

It is natural to want to know what happens next, and this is where you tell them. Tie up all the loose ends and don’t leave any questions hanging. The tighter and more reassuring you can make this final section, the better your communication will be.

That is the WISCDAR process. A comprehensive and easy to follow guide to producing compelling communications. I hope that it helps you as much as it has helped me.

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Part 15: Traffic – Form an Orderly Line.

If you build a better mousetrap they won’t buy it. They won’t buy it unless they know where to buy it, that is.

Websites are like that. You can build the best darned website on the Internet and it’ll just sit there looking pretty. Nobody will visit. There won’t be a virtual line out of your door. The hungry crowds will not be clamoring to get in. Why? Because they won’t know about it.

On the other hand, you could build a really crap website, filled with junk content that seems to suck visitors in like an online vacuum cleaner.

The difference is that one site knows how to attract traffic and the other doesn’t.

And that, my friend, is what Internet marketing is all about – getting traffic.

In the end, nothing much else matters – if you don’t have eyeballs looking at your web pages, you don’t have zip.

It sounds simple – go tell people about your website. In old-fashioned terms, that’s called advertising. But of course, if it really was that easy, everyone would be doing it and the sad truth is that most people fail at Internet marketing because they never get to grips with the idea that they have to do something to get the traffic.

There are dozens, or perhaps even hundreds of ways to build a stream of traffic. In this installment of this course we’ll look a few that I use – but just be aware that this is by no means a definitive list. There are lots of other methods, and part of the trick is in finding the ones that best suit you (and your potential audience).

1. Search Engine Free Traffic.

We’ve touched on this in the blog building lessons. If you create web pages that the search engines consider to be ‘authority pages’ then they will place them high in the indexes when folks go searching for related keywords. That can bring you anything from a trickle to a flood of well targeted visitors and it won’t cost you a cent. of course, getting your pages recognized by Google as an authority worthy of ranking on page one is no mean feat in itself. Especially if the keyword is a particularly popular one.

The whole process is called search engine optimization (SEO) and is a complex subject that entire books have been written about.

Suffice it to say, you can ignore most of the advice you’ll read and concentrate on a couple of known facts: 1. Search Engines love blogs. 2. It is easier to be ranked highly for lots of less popular keyword phrases than for one massive keyword.

For example, you and I will never get a page one listing on Google for the keyword ‘acne’, yet it is very possible for us to get onto page one for ‘acne treatment in the UK’ or ‘acne treatment Texas’. A well written blog entry targeted to acne treatment in the UK, and surrounded by the kind of related words and phrases that the SEs think make such a page an authority, would stand a very good chance of high listings.

A small amount of free traffic from a multitude of web pages or blog entries is just as good as a lot of traffic from one page. And a whole lot easier to achieve.

2. Search Engine Paid Traffic.

You know about placing Google AdSense on your web pages to make money from them when people click, but here we are talking about the opposite side of AdSense: AdWords. When an advertiser places an ad that will ultimately become an AdSense listing, they are buying an AdWords campaign. Here, you would bid on words and phrases and have you ad displayed when those keywords are entered into the search engines – or when people land on participating websites that are targeted for that word.

You pay ‘per click’. In other words, every time someone clicks on your ad to visit your web page, you pay Google (or whichever PPC network) for the privilege.

If you’ve calculated that for every 100 visitors to your website, 2 will buy something from you, netting you a profit of $30, then you know that you can bid up to 30 cents for each ‘click’ to break even. More realistically, you’d probably bid somewhat less than that to make a profit.

Sometimes an advertiser will pay far more for each click than the break even point because they know that once they’ve found a willing buyer, the lifetime value of that buyer is likely to be much higher.

3. Article writing.

At the current time, articles are in vogue. If you can write a decent article you have several opportunities for creating traffic:

a. The search engines like good articles.

b. Article directories like good articles and reward you by allowing other people to use your work on their websites in exchange for links back to your nominated pages. This can, in itself, be a good traffic generator, but it also builds up the number of backlinks your web pages have. This in turn raises your page’s authority status with the search engines and helps boost your rankings and your free traffic.

4. Viral Stickiness.

Let’s face it, some websites can be very dull. You arrive there and then can’t wait to leave. But every now and again you land on a page that is not only interesting, but it is so interesting that you bookmark it to visit later. Sometimes it is even interesting enough that you want to tell your friends about it.

That’s viral stickiness. And it can be one of the biggest and fastest traffic generators known to man or woman.

You don’t always need clever flash gimmicks to make your sites sticky and make them go viral – a poll can often be enough. Or a free report that folks can download.

A recent trend has been for people to write (or have ghost written) a shortish report on a popular subject that is deliberately controversial. Then they will let it be known that other websites can give the report away free, but will receive a dollar for everyone they refer who downloads it. The dollars can mount up – but the result is that the originator’s site can get a flood of traffic – and have a massive mailing list built for them in no time.

If the report refers people back to the originators web pages, the traffic is recirculated.

You can do much the same with the $7 report method – create a controversial report that everyone wants to read and talk about, set it for sale at a couple of dollars, give everyone who ‘sells’ it 100% of the proceeds, and watch as your site traffic and mailing list swells.

It works.

5. Offline Opportunities.

Some of the most successful people I know online have built their businesses by advertising them offline. There is so little competition!

If you are in a niche market and have built a website you can be proud of, tell your trade magazine about it. Take a classified ad.

We are all so focused on the size of the International online marketplace that we tend to forget that offline there are billions of people who don’t surf the net as much as we do.

When I was a kid, I had an elderly great-uncle called Bob Smith. Old Uncle Bob had a glass eye, a fierce temper, was a died-in-the-wool communist and drank himself into a stupor every day, but he taught me one of the most capitalist poems I know:

He who whispers down a well
About the goods he has to sell
Will never reap the golden dollars
Like the man who stands and hollers.
 
Getting traffic to your web page is the modern-day equivalent of reaping the golden dollars (or should be if you’re doing your job properly). So don’t whisper down a well – stand and holler and watch as your stats counter shows you an ever-increasing stream of visitors to your site.

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