Affiliate Programs

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As someone who has more than a few websites, I’m always on the lookout for web content. Not just any web content, but web site content I feel good about puting on the Internet. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

Right now in my files, I have over 20,000 PLR articles. I’ve been a “member” of most PLR sites that give you PLR articles every month plus I’ve bought PLR artciles off of Webmaster Forums. That being said, I’ve only used about 15 of those articles, not 15k, but 15. Of those, I’ve had to modify everyone in order to get them Internet ready. This is one reason I no longer buy PLR articles! By the time I “modify” the damn things enough to make them unique and presentable to one of my sites, I could have written the article myself! Which leads me to believe….

PLR Articles are One of the Biggest Rip Offs in Affiliate Marketing Today!

Try this the next time you’re tempted to use a PLR article on one of your websites. Take the title name and type it into Google with quotes around it so that Google will only search for that title. Now you can see how many other people are using the same article. Or better yet, after you’ve changed the article up to suit you, run it through Copyscape to see the results you get. You have to change sentence and paragraph structures of those PLR articles to get them unique.

Now if Copyscape can find duplicate articles within a few seconds, how fast do you think it takes Google? Can you say duplicate content penalty?

The Advantages of Quality Web Site Content

Now I come to Content Providers. No, not people who sell PLR articles or memberships. Content Providers are people actually write articles for you.

A while back I was in a Webmaster forum and there was a post from someone wanting articles written. He asked around to see what a 500 word article would cost to have written. The answers he received ranged from $3 to $25.

He then made a follow up post telling the two highest bidders that a 500 word article wasn’t worth $20 or $25. He wasn’t alone, other forum members stated the same thing. I don’t know who he chose to get his 500 word article written, but I’m sure it was at the low end.

This got me to thinking.

Why do Webmaster spend a great many hours building and maintaining their sites, use the latest tools and technology and then refuse to put quality content on their sites? It’s like buying a Porsche and putting old lawnmower gas in it! Duh!

The Real Cost Associated With Web Content

Being curious, I decided to go and look at my Adsense account and picked one of my older sites to see what my most profitable page was. I keep logs from month to month (actually I just print out one from Google) so I can see what content my readers like. This particular site has an adsense channel name for every page. It’s a site that I do most of my experimenting on when it comes to Google Adsense.

My top page on that particular site made me $44.80 last month. The month before, $59.36. Now this is a domain that receives about 60 to 125 hits per day. This is only one of about 90 pages on that site.

So what’s so great about those numbers? That page makes me between $35 and $50 every month on average.

In comparison, my lowest performing page on that site made me $8.19 last month. (both pages get near the same number of impressions) It’s a PLR article that I modified. I should have just written the article on the keyword phrase I was trying to target, but I got lazy and it has cost me over the last two years.

So Why Am I Telling You This?

Well, it’s certainly not to brag. Those numbers are nothing to write home about. The reason I point these out is to make my point that good quality content does not cost you, it pays you over and over, month after month, year after year, like a good Blue Chip dividend paying stock.

So you paid $20 for a well written and researched article. How long will it take you to make your money back from that article? A month? Two months? Even if it takes 3 months (and it shouldn’t if you have the traffic), once that article has paid for itself, everything forward is profit, month after month, year after year. KaChing, KaChing, KaChing.

Equally, that PLR article isn’t making you the maximum amount of profit that it could be if it was written better. It’s costing you money every month, year after year. It’s a shack sitting on valuable real estate.

Other Advantages of Quality Content Providers

I don’t use Content Providers to just write articles for my websites, I also use for article marketing plus I use the web content to build opt in email list. A Content Provider who can write captivating keyword rich content are worth their weight in Gold!

Any one use product specific landing pages and sale sheets? I have a few “go to” people for writing content for landing pages and sales pages. Again, it’s not what they cost, it’s about how much they’re going to make you in the long run.

A Good Content Provider Is An Investment

As with any investment, there are up front cost associated with web site content before it turns a profit. Sure, some investments go bust, but if you know your niche and can spot good content when you see it, web site content will pay for itself in a short amount of time.

Don’t think of buying articles from Content Providers simply as “paying someone to write an article”, you must think of it as investing in your website. Once you see the payback potential, a well written and researched $20 article is a Golden Cash Machine. KaChing, KaChing, KaChing!

How To Find Good Content Providers

I’ve went through quite a few content providers in the last 10 years. I’ve found them in nearly every place you can imagine. I’ve paid family members, friends and others I know to write content for some of my sites. I’ve also used the Marketplace sections of most Webmaster Forums such as DigitalPoint to find others. On larger jobs, I’ve posted “help wanted” post at eLance and RentACoder.

I found one of my best Content Providers by taking out a small classified ad in the local paper. It simply said I needed people to write interesting and unique articles, I gave an email address and told them to apply with a sample article.

The ad landed me a retired English teacher who wanted to make some extra money. I paid her between $10 and $15 per article. She lasted about a year and then moved back East with her kids. I wanted her to continue writing, but apparently she didn’t have time with all the Grandkids around. Man, let me tell you, that was one sad day when she left!

Not all Content Providers are created equal. Have them send you a sample and give them a trial run. You’ll likely go through several before you find one that you like. It takes time, but the pay back will be worth it.

I know I’ve found a good Content Provider when their article holds my attention through the entire article. If I find it interesting, visitors to my site will also. Happy visitors click ads, sad visitors hit the “Back” button.