AP 0057: How Do You Feel about Using PLRs on Niche Sites?

AskPat 57 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey what's up everybody? This is Pat Flynn and welcome to Episode 57 of AskPat. As always I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week. If you have a question you'd like answered here on the show, head on over to AskPat.com.

Now today's episode is brought to you by FreshBooks. I love FreshBooks. They are here to help us organize our finances, invoices, and just keep everything intact. I really wish I had started with FreshBooks much earlier when I first started doing online business. I had to play catch up. So don't play catch up, go to GetFreshBooks.com and put in “Ask Pat” in the “How did you hear about us?” section. You'll get a sixty-day extended free trial if you do that. Again that's, GetFreshBooks.com. “Ask Pat” in the referral section.

Now today's question comes from Ted about something called PLR. If you don't know what PLR is, those are Private Label Rights. And typically they refer to articles. Articles that other people have written, that you can purchase and use on your own sight. So let's hear from Ted about what he's exactly thinking about or asking about in regards to PLR, or Private Label Rights Content.

Ted Pinkard: Hi, Pat. My name is Ted Pinkard, and I blog at SpecialNeedsHome.org, it's about raising special needs twin boys. I recently went to my first conference, and one of the trainings was on content creation. But what it really ended up being about, was PLR, which I've never heard of. Now I've never used PLR's on my primary website, but I also have a niche site about substance abuse certification that, quite honestly, I have a hard time coming up with content on a regular basis. I've listened to you for a long time and I trust what you say. So I'd like to know what are your thoughts of using PLR, particularly for a niche site? Thanks.

Pat Flynn: Ted, thank you so much for your question. PLR is a very sensitive subject and it was PLR, using Private Label Rights articles, buying sets of articles that you can use for your own stuff. A lot of people sort of have weird feelings about that. And it's no wonder, because you're purchasing stuff that other people have written and you're putting it on your own sight. Whether it's your own main site, your blog, or your niche site that you're talking about Ted, I'm going to give you my thoughts and feelings about this.

But before that, I want to mention a resource. This is Episode 9, or Session 9 of The Smart Passive Income Podcast. So I had a woman on as a guest, an amazing woman. Her name is Nicole Dean from NicoleOnTheNet.com, and what I love about Nicole, is she has a very cool motto that I sort of adapted and have used and I tell myself over time: You want to make money by making the web a more wonderful place. That's where that phrase comes from. It's from Nicole Dean: Make money by making the web a more wonderful place. And I love that sort of philosophy. And she has a company actually, a person who said that. Nicole Dean has a company that sells PLR articles, at EasyPLR.com. And she sells all types of articles, she hires writers to create articles, that she then sells to other people who are in those same niches. [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation if you purchase through these links.]

Now there's a lot of things to think about when it comes to PLR. If you post those articles on your sight, those are articles that are potentially going to be posted on other sites and you can suffer from duplicate content penalties. Or if you're in the same niche as somebody else using those same articles, if somebody comes to your page and sees that that's something they already read somewhere else, what's that going to say about your sight? Internally, a lot of people don't feel right about doing that. They feel like they have to create all the content themselves. And I understand that, because that's how I feel as well. However, Nicole makes a very strong argument and I agree with her in this regard.

You can use PLR articles. You can purchase articles that other people have written who may be experts or who have done the research on things that you might not be quite as much of an expert in. But, reshape that content. Use it as a starting point or inspiration for the creation of your on content that you can then publish on your own sight. So what you essentially do, is you take the PLR articles, you read them, you reshape them, you put them in your own words, in your own voice, in your own style that your audience is used to listening to, and then you can publish that on your sight. And that's totally okay. I feel like that is totally okay, because you're using PLR to help you sort of with that starting point. Maybe you, like you said Ted, you're struggling a little bit about what to talk about. Well when you get these articles from PLR repositories, you're going to know what to talk about. They're written on specific topics about the particular topic you want to write, because those are the articles you purchased. Then you can sort of expand from there or take what they've written and add to it, or reshape. I know a lot of people who didn't feel comfortable using PLR, but then have purchased PLR articles. And what they do is, they have the PLR article on one side and they use the PLR article on the other side. Or they have a blank page on the other side that they're going to write to create their article on, that they're going to publish. And they sort of read the PLR article, they think about that, and you know, the first couple paragraphs, then they sort of re-word it and put it into their own voice. And that might take a little bit longer than just adding a few words here and there and reshaping it, but of course the more you sort of re-work it and turn it into your own voice, the more unique it's going to be.

And of course again, if your goal is to make the web a more wonderful place, you don't want to take the exact content that you buy, that you know other people are going to have on their site too, and just paste it on your sight. But if want to make the web more wonderful place like Nicole says, you can take this content, and it's going to help somebody because it's about a topic you know is important and you just might not know enough about to write about, or to get a good start with. You can take that, reshape it, re-voice it, and put it on your own site so people can benefit from it.

So those are my thoughts with PLR. I feel like if you copy, paste, directly from the articles that you purchase and just put it on your website, that's no good. That's sort of copping out. That's just the easy way. And you're going to get penalized over time. Maybe it might work a little bit in the beginning, especially if you do well with back-linking and those sort of things. But over time I feel that work that's done in that way will catch up to you, for sure. It has caught up to me before. But if you take the time to read those articles that you're purchasing, reshape them, and put them in your own voice, and own style on your own site, it can truly benefit somebody. And a lot of times you wouldn't have been able to do that without the help of PLR material.

So if you want to get access to good PLR material, I know Nicole has a place. It's called Easy PLR. If you go to AskPat.com/plr, that will give you great sort of archive of articles to choose from. And your niche might or might not be there, but she does have great writers writing for there. So again, that's AskPat.com/easyplr. [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation if you purchase through these links.] Ted, I hope that answers your question today about PLR and for those of you out there who maybe not have known that existed, maybe you can start with those articles now and produce stuff for your audience that you wouldn't have been able to produce on your own. Again, as long as you put your own voice to it.

So Ted, an AskPat teeshirt is headed your way. Thank you so much again. If you have a question you'd like answered here on the show, head on over to AskPat.com. You can just ask that question right there on the widget, using that widget right there on that page, using your microphone, your internal mic on your computer, or a headset, or whatever the case may be. You don't have to phone in. Just ask me a question; I'm here to help you.

Again this episode was brought to you by FreshBooks. If you go to GetFreshBooks.com and put in “Ask Pat” in the referral section, you will get a sixty-day extended free trial to the best software you can use online to help you manage your finances, just to keep track of everything, invoices to go back in history, and it really helps during tax season, which I know it's right around the corner. Again it's, GetFreshBooks.com. Put in “Ask Pat” in the referral section. Thank you to FreshBooks for their awesome sponsorship of the show.

And of course I'm going to end with a quote. This is from Louise Brown. Louise Brown says, “Never give up, and most importantly be true to yourself. Write from your heart, in your own voice, and about what you believe in.” And again, I think PLR is okay, and you can do that using PLR, just don't copy/paste. You don't want to do that. But get inspiration from something, turn it into your own, add to it, maybe even change it, maybe take a whole different take on it, but at least you know something to start with and then you can go from there to deliver value to your audience which should always, always, be the goal. Take care, thanks so much, and I'll see you the next episode of AskPat.