Blueprint Steps #4 and #5: Create Your Sites

Today we’re going to discuss creating your auto-pilot sites, albeit very briefly. The folks at Hyper VRE do a better job than I can at explaining how to work their software, so you’ll want to leverage their resources should you need help getting started. If you haven’t yet viewed the software videos , now would be a good time.

You can also find the user manual on the computer where Hyper VRE is installed. Click Start > All Programs > HyperVRE > HyperVRE User Manual.

With your first niche family, you are now going to create one auto-pilot site for EACH family member. If you have one parent and three children, you should end up with a total of four sites. Take your time and get the site just right.

For each niche in your niche family, find the corresponding keyword list. Sort the list by KEI descending and note all keywords with a high KEI. Do the same for R/S and total searches. Hopefully you have a list of 20-30 (or maybe more) high-quality keyphrases, and a supporting list of 20-80 more keywords. I usually shoot for somewhere between 50 and 100 total keyphrases. Hyper VRE has a lite keyword tool built-in, but I always import my keyword lists, as my imported lists almost always are better targeted than Hyper VRE’s lists.

Choose whichever options you like, but I find that the magic formula consists of a mixture of custom and duplicate content. Obviously, purely custom content will work the best, but we only have one day to put this site together, so that’s not an option. Here’s what my “magic formula” might look like for a 50-page site:

• For my five top keywords, that is, the best of the best, I create completely custom articles. I use an article wizard to create each of these articles in under 30 minutes. I don’t remember what life was like before this tool, but I can guarantee you that I will never go back!
• For my remaining high-quality keyphrases, I use private label rights content (or here) that I rewrite and optimize for the specific keyword for that page. These usually take me about 5 to 10 minutes each.
• I then import content from leading sites and article directories, almost always including several GOOD RSS feeds.
• For all appropriate niches, I create video pages that consist of You Tube videos. I work hard to attract searchers, and these video pages pay off big time, but indirectly. I find that the video pages themselves generate average ad clicks; but on sites with video pages, the sites overall get more page views and visitors staying longer, which means more clicks on other page ads. I use this tool to create a solid video page in about 10 minutes time!
• And I always take advantage of Hyper VRE’s keyword pages, even if they’re just gravy. No use leaving any potential search bait on the table!

All-in-all, this creates a site with fresh, unique content that is frequently rotated and valuable for readers.

Then upload your files, open Keyword Elite, and perform an analysis of your custom-built pages (just the ones you created manually). You want to score off the charts, so pay attention to keyword density and latent semantic indexing (LSI). LSI is beyond the scope of this group, but is a fascinating topic. Tweak your pages until Keyword Elite ranks them highly.

These steps will likely require quite a bit of time, but in a nutshell, you should be creating a new site for each family member niche; then you should be creating a new, highly optimized page for each keyword that is closely related to that niche. That’s it — it just sounds like much more when you throw in all of the other details.

I’ll give you a few days to digest this e-mail before I contact you again, but when I do, the fun really begins. After this step, the hard work is done, and it’s time to start the enjoyable aspects.

Good luck creating your sites and please contact me if you have questions. Let’s get some sites cranked out!

What to Do When You Run Out of Content Ideas

I’m guessing that you’re right in the thick of things by now, hopefully generating unique content hand over fist. But I wanted to address what happens when you run out of ideas — and it will happen! Here are some ideas to help you uncover new blog posts, or worst case scenario, give you content even when you’ve run out of ideas for new posts. Don’t worry, if it does happen, it’s just temporary.

How to Find Content Inspiration

1) Subscribe to like-minded blogs. What are they writing about? Can you respond to a post, add to a post, or dispute a post of theirs? Do their posts give you any ideas?

Don’t short-change this tactic. You will be amazed at the number of posts you can create by pseudo-collaborating with other bloggers, and it’s also a great way to get links and establish your credibility.

2) Browse forums in your field. What are people talking about? What problems are they having?

3) Try StumbleUpon! You can find clever, inspiring content with a few clicks.

4) Create a video of yourself doing something in your niche or completing a task. What’s second-nature to you could be news to someone else.

5) Review your blog comments — write about a common thread in those comments, or answer them in a new post.

6) Use Twitter! With Twitter, I really feel like I have my fingertips on the pulse of the niches I follow.

7) Write a tutorial.

Review a new service, business, web site, or book in your niche. This also gives you a way to earn some commissions. You could even set up a regular review day — maybe once every two weeks or so.

9) Interview your peers, and posts the results. Most bloggers are open to surveys from their peers, provided that it doesn’t look like social climbing.

“I Have NOTHING to Blog About!”

1) Write a recap post. Recap the week’s events, recap your favorite blog posts over the past week, recap the comments left on your blog, etc.

2) Start reaching out to guest bloggers. You can create an author account in your WordPress blog, allowing them to write content, but not publish it.

3) Use private label content (PLR). Private label content can be purchased, rewritten, and rebranded. Its quality varies, with the best stuff being available from PLR Pro. They limit distribution to 200 people and it’s well-written. Another option is InfoGoRound. The quality is not quite as good, and the content is not as exclusive, but it’s cheaper and you’re not limited to whatever the content of the month is.

Almost all other PLR content I have found is very, very, very, very bad.

4) Take a break, gather your best post ideas from the past, and go on a blog commenting campaign (see the book for how to do this). You can gain traffic, backlinks, and find ideas at the same time.

Writer’s block happens to every blogger from time to time, but if approached methodically, there’s no reason that it should slow you down.

$500 to $2000 in 4 months with PLR Content

Before we dive back into the final tips for getting the most out of article marketing, I wanted to present a short case study — really just a usage example — of PLR content.

Chris Marshall uses PLR content very effectively, and in a conversation I had with him, he shared some of his tips for rewriting PLR content to get the most value out of it.

Chris started in PPC advertising, so he knows a thing or two about optimization. Before Chris began using PLR content, he was doing quite well in AdSense compared to most average users. He went from
doing about $500 per month with just 15-20 sites, to spring boarding to $2000 per month and 170 sites, in just 4 short months using PLR content.

Chris attributes this growth directly to his usage of PLR Pro content.

Now, is $2,000 a lot? Well that depends on your perspective. For auto-pilot sites, $2,000 a month for little maintenance effort is better than a kick in the pants. And if one can attract search traffic to PLR-driven sites, just how powerful do you think the marketing benefits are of using PLR content in your article marketing efforts?

Right, pretty powerful. And fast.

I asked Chris what he would say to someone considering using PLR content from PLR Pro. And his response:

“I think the guidance from me would be that you get regular content very cost effectively, if you don’t expect miracles. Just make sure you keep up with the packs - i.e. don’t put them to one side and think ‘I’ll sort them later.’ Don’t just cut and paste — find a way to put your own touch to them, whatever that may be.”

PLR Rewriting

One of the biggest problems that people have when they get their articles is that they don’t know how to rewrite them. This is the beauty of PLR Pro’s content. It is already expertly researched, targeted, and written, so you can use the existing content and structure as an outline of sorts for your new article.

It’s not really that hard; all you need to do is look at the article you are rewriting, and just break it down into bite-sized chunks so that you can digest it effectively.

The most common strategy is to read each paragraph individually and then rewrite it in your own words. This is a very effective form of rewriting, and generally takes me about 15-20 minutes per article (a 75% time savings).

The second way you can go about the rewrite is to do a mind map of what is covered in the article, and then write about each of the major points. Mind maps are simple to learn, and are fantastic for keeping ideas, taking notes, and rewriting articles.

So those are the the two primary ways to rewrite articles. They’re not fancy, and it’s not out of this world stuff, but it works. As a side note, there are plenty of services out there that will compare an article side by side, and tell you how different they are from one another.

In the next e-mail — the final one on article marketing and PLR content (about time, yes?!) — we’ll look at a few tips to make sure your articles spread like a virus, bringing you backlinks from article directories and through syndication.

Find the Best PLR Content & Avoiding the Junk

Over the past several e-mails, we’ve discussed PLR content, especially as it relates to article marketing and creating content for auto-pilot sites. But before you run out and get your hands on PLR content, I wanted to remind you of the seedy side.

Top 10 PLR Pitfalls

1) Most PLR providers oversell their content, meaning that there are thousands of copies of your articles floating around out there.

2) Most PLR content is written by non-English native speakers.

3) Most PLR content is chock full of grammatical errors.

4) Most PLR content is poorly researched.

5) Many PLR services offer content “archives,” increasing the chance that your articles will continue to drip into the marketplace.

6) A lot of PLR content is old, meaning that the niche is no longer in favor.

7) The majority of PLR content is not keyword-targeted.

The majority of PLR content is focused on niches that are far too competitive.

9) Most PLR content is “recycled.”

10) A fair amount of PLR content is at least partially auto-generated.

Nine out of ten PLR services are JUNK. And that one out of ten is probably generous. I’ve run across very few that I’m completely satisfied with. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on PLR content, and I’ve used just about every service in existence. Partly because I like to be on the cutting edge, and partly because it enables me to provide good recommendations to you.

Out of all of the PLR services I’ve used, I have maintained subscriptions to two. The two best PLR services available today, with widely varied strategies, and therefore two different purposes.

InfoGoRound

InfoGoRound takes a few unique approaches to PLR content. One, it increases the amount of content available as membership increases, decreasing the odds that all members will be using the same content. They also offer incentives to members to submit their own content, in exchange for service credits. This results in quality content written by people knowledgeable in the field.

They also offer articles, ezine articles, sales letters, graphics, and full private label books that you can use to build your business, rewrite and sell for a profit, or build a subscriber list. They offer archives, so there is a wide variety of content available. Finally, they offer several productivity tools like a newsletter generator, training course generator, and site builder for people using PLR content.

As a whole, InfoGoRound’s content is very good and very economical at under $25 per month for access to a searchable database of thousands and thousands of articles and books. The downside is that
the potential exists for many copies of your content around the web. As such, I use InfoGoRound’s content for lower-value niches and I make sure to rewrite the articles thoroughly.

Learn more about InfoGoRound and see their content in action.

PLR Pro

PLR Pro is easily the best PLR service available on the web, and I write that with no equivocation. Their content is simply phenomenal: well-researched and expertly written by native-English speakers. Each article pack is keyword-researched, and also includes keyword lists and related affiliate programs that you can use to earn money.

For example, if they provide an article pack on travel insurance, they would also include the highest-paying keywords, the best keywords to target in marketing, and the best travel insurance affiliate programs you can use in your marketing or site creation efforts.

Here’s a simple breakdown of what they offer: hosting, monthly templates, full affiliate research, full keyword research both main and sub keywords, SEO training, and MULTIPLE languages! Multiple languages — one of my favorite features, as you can get Page Rank for the same article in six languages!

I use this content when quality counts. Its reach is limited to just 200 people, so when my monthly packs are ready, I’m sure to use them thoroughly!

The guys that run this service are fanatical about the quality of their content. I can guarantee (and they do to) that you won’t be disappointed with PLR Pro’s offering.

I hope these options help you choose a great PLR provider for your article marketing and content creation efforts.

Don’t Make these Article-Marketing Mistakes

In my last e-mail regarding article marketing, I mentioned using private label rights (PLR) content both for article marketing and for content creation on auto-pilot sites. I’ve received a handful of questions about PLR in general, so I wanted to back up just a bit to cover the ins and outs of using PLR content.

Plus, there’s so much misinformation out there right now surrounding PLR, I’d like to help set the record straight!

What is PLR?

PLR content is any content that you can freely modify, place your name on, and use as your own — no license fees, no attribution. The only restriction is that you cannot resell it.

PLR is ready made content, but to make sure you rank highly in the search engines, you must make it your own, and that involves rewriting it. Generally it takes me around 1 hour to write an article from scratch, but I can make a PLR article my own in about 10 minutes time.

PLR content and the article wizard I mentioned in my previous e-mail are the tools that enable me to crank out nearly 50 articles a day.

Top Ways to Use PLR Content

When you purchase it, you can do anything you want with it (aside from reselling it), but the three most common uses are:

1) Use it as web content. Some use it on niche blogs, and some on sites. I use it to populate my auto-pilot sites. I even chop up the content and use paragraphs on the eBay partner stores I’ve mentioned in the past. This is a great strategy to drive additional search traffic to your niche stores.

2) Use it for article marketing. This is my favorite use — after rewriting the content, I submit it to article directories. I prefer to use an article marketing tool like the Unique Article Wizard (this is different from the article wizard I mentioned above) so that each directory receives a unique copy.

3) Many people chop up this content and put it into a e-mail newsletter.

Top PLR Mistakes

So if PLR is so easy to use, how do people make mistakes? Well that’s easy . . .

1) They join a service that is sub-par or is part of a wholesaling network.

There are a lot of services out there that offer sub-par quality content. It’s written by writers who don’t have English as their first language, or in some cases, give content that is less than third grade level. Nine out of 10 PLR services are GARBAGE.

It should be obvious you don’t want to join these kinds of PLR memberships.

The other thing is that there have become a few wholesaling PLR networks. What this means is that a membership can offer PLR material that other memberships are offering. They get their articles all from the same source, and the articles are identical!

Why do you stay away from these? Because the service might say “limited to 300 people” but the reality is that there are 10 or 20 other places out there that are offering the same material to the same number of people!

2) They join a service that has too many members or offer backlogs to their articles.

This should be quite obvious, but places that are open to 1000 people, just aren’t the place to join (unless you are getting it really cheap!). The reason is that the more people that have the content, the more people you are going to be competing with, and the less likely people are going to rewrite their content.

3) They forget about the fundamentals of building sites

Sometimes people get into this building frenzy, which makes them just want to build site after site after site. The problem with that is that on the internet the phrase “Build it and they will come” just doesn’t apply. When you build a site, make sure that you keep the on page SEO factors right, and that you are building the site over time, slowly uploading content, and building links.

Important stuff, but it needs to be remembered.

4) They don’t make it their own.

You should never purchase PLR content and then paste it into your articles. Unless you spend the time to make these articles unique to you, they will be rejected by the respectable article directories, and they won’t rank in Google for the others.

By following the rewrite process that I’ll mention in a future e-mail, your articles will be made unique. Or, you can use an article checking tool for a more objective assessment of the uniqueness of your article. A good tool will tell you the percent different one article is from another, and will also tell you the keyword density of your article. Where do you find such a tool? Just click the link below — Blogging in Action’s Article Sheriff software is free for all members of this group.

So, that’s it for today. Look out for the next e-mail soon, and we’ll resume how you can use PLR content for article marketing.

Options for Creating Article Content

Today’s e-mail focuses on a specific piece of article marketing: creating articles. You might be tempted to cut and paste your best blog posts and use them as articles, and this does benefit you with backlinks. But you risk diluting your unique content by spreading it across the web. Better options include:

• Rewrite your blog posts: you can completely rewrite your blog posts so that the content on your blog remains unique while you submit the rewritten content to directories. The disadvantage to this method is that it’s time consuming.
• Rewrite PLR content: you can rewrite private label content and submit it to article directories. The disadvantage to this is that you don’t know how thin that private label content has been spread, so you can’t be completely confident of its uniqueness.
• Hire a ghostwriter: you can always hire someone else to write articles for you to submit to directories, but ghostwritten content is usually poor quality.
• Write articles yourself: the best option is to write new content from scratch, but this can be time consuming.

Personally, I use a combination approach. I write all my keystone articles from scratch with the help of an article research and writing tool; and I write all my secondary content using PLR content as a base. Note that these articles are used for marketing purposes or auto-pilot content only; NOT for creating posts for long-term blogs.

Article Research and Writing

Writing a good article usually takes an hour or so. Because I know that the benefits of article marketing are huge, I write many articles, and the tool I use to speed this process up is Instant Article Wizard. With it, I can research a subject and write an article in under 10 minutes, and my articles always turn out to be high quality.

I type in my research phrase, e.g. “article marketing is,” and my article wizard generates all of the research I need to create an article. It suggests content for the introduction and conclusion, and even presents me with subtopic research I can use in each of my paragraphs. I then point and click several headlines, point and click to arrange my article, and adjust the transitions. Voila! Unique, high-quality content in minutes! Look at this video to see how this works.

This is the perfect article generation tool to use in your article marketing efforts. Forget about wasted time, writer’s block, and painful research. Save that for your blog! For writing articles for article marketing, I want two things: 1) fast results, and 2) keyword dense content. The article wizard is an indispensable tool for this effort.

Rewriting PLR Content

There are PLENTY of places to find private label content online, but most of it is garbage. I subscribe to two service for PLR content: one I use to populate my niche websites and auto-pilot blogs, and the other I use for article marketing.

InfoGoRound is a perfect candidate for article marketing because of the wealth of content that is available, and because of the overall high quality of the content.

For populating auto-pilot sites, I wouldn’t be without PLR Pro, which is hands-down the best private label content provider around.

I’ll describe private label rights content in more detail in upcoming e-mails.

Article Writing Approach

Depending on the size of your niche, I’d recommend writing 8 to 12 articles per keyword grouping. If you have a tightly focused blog, then just 8 to 12 will do. If your blog covers a few topics, then make sure to address each niche.

Write three to five primary articles first. These are your keystone articles that you know are the most profitable and will drive the most traffic. You know this information because you DID YOUR KEYWORD RESEARCH, right? Then submit your keystone articles for syndication (we’ll cover this in more detail later). Your resource boxes on these articles should deep link into your blog, and the link titles must be optimized properly. For example “click here” is not a good link title; “find travel discounts” is a good title (provided you have a travel blog).

Conclusion

Whatever you do, make sure that the articles you submit for article marketing are entirely unique. The best way to do this is to research and write articles from scratch using the article wizard. Private label content is another good option for secondary content, but always focus on your completely unique articles first. Don’t forget to check out Instant Article Wizard.

Article Marketing is a Blog Promotion MUST

To continue on with the blog promotion theme, another highly effective way of redirecting traffic to your blog is through article marketing. I mentioned article marketing in the Blogging in Action book, but I wanted to call attention to it again because it’s a technique that I strongly recommend you utilize in your promotion efforts.

Short of purchasing links, article marketing has the potential to build more valuable backlinks than any other promotion method. I’ve been able to generate over 100 NATURAL backlinks in six months through the use of article marketing. These links “drip” in, giving them a very organic and valuable pattern.

To give article marketing the breathing room it deserves, I’m going to devote a few tips to it, covering strategies for article marketing, the directories to target, how to syndicate your content onto relevant blogs, and more.

For today, I just want to touch on a technique I use to make article marketing more effective.

Remember, from your resource box, you get a backlink from the article directory itself, and you get a backlink from each web site or blog that uses your article. But you can make those links even more powerful by targeting a subset of your articles as the keystone articles. You do this by posting your main keyword article first, deep-linked to your blog. Your supporting articles are posted later, pointing to your original articles and to your blog. This builds the PageRank of your keystone articles which in turn builds your blog’s PageRank.

Simple, clever, and almost no one does it! We’ll discuss this technique and a few other clever ways to build lots of traffic through articles in the coming days.