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  • How Do I Choose A PLR Topic or Niche

    When creating PLR products the very first thing you have to do is to choose a topic or niche.   Obviously, if you are creating a product or writing an article pack, you have to choose what to write about.  Basics.

    What might not be so obvious, is what to choose!  Since you are trying to make money, the key will be to choose something that sells.  You need to choose niches or topics that are in DEMAND.

    There is demand for PLR in a lot of niches, but having run a membership site for awhile now there are definitely some things to consider when you are choosing your topic or niche.

    1. Your Knowledge Base – What do you like writing about, what are you good at writing?  Is there anything you know more about than the average person?  This is a great way to think of a topic to write about.  This won’t guarantee commercial success, but it will let you put together the best product you can, in the least time possible.

    Take the time to brainstorm, and write a huge list of your interests, experiences and things you know a lot about.   These could all be potential topics for your PLR.  When you choose something from this list you will know that you will be able to write about it and will probably save a lot of research time.

    2. What’s Hot – PLR is a very web-based business so that means things move rapidly.  You have to keep your eyes and ears open on what it is popular – especially when it comes to the internet.  If you are creating PLR you don’t want to miss out on a hot topic – these topics can come and go fast so make sure you take advantage.  Some of our biggest successes have been from trending topics like Mobile Marketing and Google+.

    3. The Classic Earners – Since I have been creating PLR products for a couple of years now, I have learned that some niches always sell well.  They might not be MONSTER sellers like trending niches can be, but they will always garner enough interest to be worth pursuing.  I am sure people will have their own views on this, but looking back at our last 60 or so products, I feel like the following niches seem to consistently be PLR friendly:

    Social Media (Twitter, Facebook especially)

    Health (Diet, Exercise, etc…)

    Online Marketing

    Blogging/WordPress

    4. Products That Transcend Niches – Another thing that we have found selling PLR, is that products which can be used across a wide variety of niches sell particularly well.  This makes sense because the products aren’t limited to small niches.  These type of products for us have included:

    Time Management

    Motivation

    Content Creation

    That is not a full list by far, but those have been the most successful ones that I have sold.  The common theme between them is that they could be helpful to just about anyone who is working online.  Everyone needs time, motivation and content!

    When it comes to choosing a niche for your PLR product, the above considerations will help you create something that is commercially viable.  Now that said, and I may be in the minority, but I also think you shouldn’t lose too much sleep over your choice of topic.  I say jump right in, if it doesn’t sell well, you still have a business asset you can use on upsells/bundles and like Jay-Z says “On to the next one…”.

  • Search Engine Optimisation Is Easier Than You Think

    Some people think that in order to benefit from search engine optimisation that they need to go to drastic lengths and take a lot of time to learn how to do it. But, the reality is that you can benefit from just a few simple tips and you can use these tips for your articles as well as your blog posts.

    The best way to go is to start by building a big keyword list of words and phrases that are closely related to your niche. Ideally, you will want to find keywords that get at least 1,500 searches a month and no more than 20,000 competitors.

    Once you have your keyword list built all you need to do is to pick one keyword per article and / or blog post and write a well written article around that keyword. You should then include the keyword in the title of your article or blog post.

    Please do not make the mistake of thinking that the more keywords you include the better. That is called keyword stuffing and it will do far more harm than good. The search engines have remarkably sophisticated algorithms that can pick up on this and your article will be penalized if you try.

    Instead use the keyword once in your article or blog post title, once in the first paragraph, once in the last paragraph and once or twice throughout the rest of your article. You want the article to read naturally.

    Remember, you aren’t just trying to attract the search engines, you want to make sure your article makes sense for human readers too, actually this should be your main focus. You don’t have to short change your readers just to keep the search engines happy, you can do both.

    You want to strive for a keyword density of no more than 3%. Obviously the longer the article the more keywords you can include and still make that 3% goal. I recommend you keep your article and blog posts at about 350 to 500 words in length.

    That is the optimum length because it is long enough to allow you to include some useful information without being so long that it turns off any potential readers. If your article is too short it just looks like it is all for the purpose of keyword stuffing and many search engines and article directories don’t appreciate that.

    On the other hand, internet surfers are notoriously short on attention span, so to get the most out of your articles you can also include bullet points and keep your paragraphs short and to the point. Also, don’t make your articles too long, over 500 words, or too short, less than 350 words.

    There is a lot more you can do with search engine optimization if you want to invest the time and effort. But, for most people just a little knowledge and keyword placement in your articles or blog posts can really help you get more traffic to your website.

  • Turning Your List into Joint Ventures

    Now as far as turning your list into joint ventures goes, this is a pretty easy but also open ended and rather variable in results until you actually see what these people are capable of further down the line. Similar to previously, when we talked about gaining feedback from your list you can in the same way, gain joint ventures from your list, again, as in the above example with the affiliates, this is often far more widely used, and for good reason.

    I urge you once again, not to relegate your joint venture prospects to those who visit your website, and the individuals you pick out through the top performing affiliates, but to actively seek them through your list. The reason we’re doing this is simply because there’s a good chance someone will be out there that won’t progress down your line of resources otherwise. If they’re experienced, have a big list of their own, or the ability to get in touch with your target market, you’re going to miss out if you’re not telling them that you want their services.

    For example, an experienced marketer that subscribes to a selection of lists to keep up with what’s going on around them, happens to subscribe to your list where you’re selling an info product such as this. He or she won’t buy your how to product, because they’ve got their system set up already and it just so happens, that they only promote their own stuff to their own lists, unless it’s a joint venture (this is very common among the big guys by the way), they won’t buy your big product for the same reason, and they won’t be joining your affiliate program for the above reason. He or she is a heavy hitter with a big list, but you’re missing out. These are the people you’re aiming to cater for here. It’s not good if you’re leaving massive holes like this, because you’re missing out on some massive profit potential. In fact, as we speak the majority of marketers out there are very obviously leaving these types of holes.

    The problem with joint venturing through a list at this stage is it becomes kind of a lottery if you’re not careful. You can’t just send out a mailing asking for anyone with a list over ten thousand people to contact you for higher commissions, because then everyone else feels cheated and you may alienate some potential affiliates. In general terms joint ventures should be a private thing, the deal will also vary from person to person, depending on your product, their list size, what they want in return and what you can grant in return. The best way to go about this is to keep it that way. Don’t do a mass mailing just requesting joint ventures for the reasons above, we can’t do that for this particular resource.

    What I’d suggest you do instead, which you should be doing with your list anyway, is carry on as your normally do, sending out your un-intrusive surveys to help with your research and find out as much info as you can about the people on your list, for something in return. For example a short valuable report that you’ve written on your area of expertise. In exchange you’re getting vital info that not only allows you to tailor your ads to your list providing a better response rate, but at the same time you’re building up a picture of who the good joint venture prospects are. Once you’ve done that, you can go through the results you’ve collected, and pick the top performers, the knowledgeable, and the people with the most resources, and contact them individually.

  • Free Marketing Mania

    Savvy online business owners can take advantage of all the free marketing opportunities the Internet has to offer. In order to maximize the results by using free marketing, you’ll need to put in a little bit of elbow grease and quite a few hours of time, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be astonished by how well you can get the word of your business out there and start seeing real conversions.

    The best way to go about marketing your site without spending a dime is definitely the social media route. There has been a literal explosion of interest in sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, and Yelp in recent years, and any online business owner who’s interested in getting the word out about their products and services would be foolish to not take advantage of these congregation spots.

    The trick for making social media marketing effective is the method in which you go about it. Many business owners simply sign up their businesses for accounts and then send off hundreds if not thousands of friend requests and expect interest to come flooding back in.

    The reality of the situation is that it’s not that easy – a smaller approach is definitely much more economical insofar as generating real interest in your business is concerned. Start by friending smaller groups – no larger than twenty people. If somebody sees that you’re trying to friend over two hundred people, chances are they’ll think you’re a spammer and not reply to your query. Smaller groups make you look more genuine and interesting. Also remember only to friend groups and individuals who have a stated interest in the product or services that you sell; to do otherwise is considered spam.

    When sending out news feeds on these sites, the number one rule to consider is keeping your send-offs interesting. Before you send anything out, be it a “tweet” or a status update or an email announcement, take a minute and think about whether or not what you’re sending out is relevant or interesting. People will enjoy hearing about your product offers occasionally, but not three times a day. Again, you don’t want to come off as a spammer, because then people will stop friending you and the whole process will be for naught.

    Also, be sure to take the time to look at the profiles of your friends and occasionally comment on what they have to say. This helps build your credibility as a “friend” and show that you take an active interest in the people who are following you on the social networking sites. Once again, more personable and less spam-like makes your social media marketing strategy much more effective.

  • WordPress Settings

    If your website is powered by WordPress, then you know the adminstrators panel is full of different options. I know people who run their blog and barely touch their settings at all. WordPress is pretty much good to go out of the box, but there are a couple settings you should think about tweaking.

    1. Privacy – You definitely want to check out this setting. I have heard rumours of people installing a fresh WordPress and their privacy settings are set to block search engines. It is worth a shot just to go into this setting really quickly and making sure that search engines can crawl your site. This is the only option to tweak in this particular settings menu so it is easy stuff. Most people will want to allow search engines because that is where most of your traffic will be coming from.

    2. Discussion Settings – You can leave these settings alone if you want but there are a couple things I like to tweak. FIrst off I make sure the top option “Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the article. ” is clicked. This means when you have a link to another blog you will send a trackback to that blog. If the person allows trackbacks that could count as a back link for you. Back links are good things!

    I also like to change my gravatar picture. This is a small step but it can add a lot to the aesthetics of your site. A lot of people who comment on your site will not have a gravatar, so the default will show up. The “mystery man” might be good enough for most, but if it looks bad on my blog I will want to change it. Sometimes I will go with blank and sometimes I will just pick the one that matches my site colors and theme.

    3. Writing Settings – In here I like to set my own Default Categories and Link Categories. You can easily run your blog or website without doing this, but I feel it saves me time and effort. I hate having “Ungategorized” show up in my list of categories. If I change my default category to something else, it means I will probably never have to see uncategorized again. Sometimes I forget to categorize my posts and when that happens I won’t have to worry about Uncategorized showing up all of a sudden. Same goes with Link Categories. I only have one category of links that I use in my sidebar, so it makes sense to make that category the default.

    This is truly just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of settings you can tweak for your WordPress site. The above three are just a couple I make sure to do right away when I set up a site. These simple settings save me some time and I hope they can do the same for you.

  • How to place an Adsense ad in your WordPress blog

    Video: How to place an Adsense ad in your WordPress blog

  • How to Create New WordPress Pages

    Video: The fundamentals of creating new WordPress blog posts

  • Search Term Suggestion – Saves Time And Money

    Keywords are one of the most important aspects of your online business. Keywords will determine how many visitors you get, how much you will pay for those visitors (though in many cases it can be totally free) and how qualified those visitors are. To find the best keywords you need to use the best keyword search term suggestion tool.

    There are many to choose from, but one of the best is completely free to use. Google has a keyword tool that provides you with several search parameters and it is free to use right online, you don’t need to download anything.

    Since Google is one of the big 3 search engines it’s just common sense that they would know which search terms get searched for the most as well as other factors about how competitive they are.

    Using their data and keyword tools can provide you with all the keyword information you need to make money online. There is a process to it though, learn the process first so you know the best way to do it.

    When you start out online one very common (and very wrong) practice is to use the keywords that have a lot of monthly searches. By ‘a lot’ I mean search terms that are getting into the hundreds of thousands of searches a month.

    At first glance that seems like a good idea, doesn’t it? Surely with hundreds of thousands of visitors to your site, you will be rich and retiring from your day job in no time.

    But, not so fast. With those highly searched for keywords you will have so much competition that it’s very unlikely that you will be able to compete at all. That means you probably won’t get any traffic from those keywords.

    A much better strategy is to find keywords that have fewer searches per month so you can rank well for them. Even if you have a list of a dozen or so keywords and each of them averages a few thousand searches a month. You can rank well for many of those terms, not just one.

    Think of the traffic you would get if you had say 10 keywords that each got 1,500 searches a month and you were on page one, in the first or second spot for all ten of those keywords. That’s a lot of visitors to your website.

    If you add some of these keywords to your web pages you can rank high with the search engines. It’s called search engine optimization and it is a much better investment than paying for traffic and always having to worry about what your bid prices will be.

    There are many excellent tools you can use to pick out your keyword list. This process can get a little boring sometimes but it is crucial to your online success.

    With so many search term suggestion tools available and many of them free, you can take some of the time and tedium out of the equation.

  • Lie Cheat And Steal

    Lie Cheat And Steal Your Way….

    Yes you read the title right – if you have been blogging with no results, then it is time to turn to the dark side. No more Mr. Nice Guy blogging for you. You have tried your best at being honest – now it is time to embrace the darkness. You need traffic? Then you need to lie, cheat and steal your way to blogging supremacy. Let me guide you down this dire path. If your pure and innocent mind is telling you to stop reading, you might want to continue just to see what I mean.

    1. Lie! It is time to forget the ten commandments, lying can help you devise some catchy blog posts that will get talked about. I have to admit that my idea of lying might not be as evil as you were expecting. I am actually talking about satire. You can use satire to craft funny posts that people may feel more inclined to spread. This might be hard to explain so I will give you an example. I pretended to get a sneak peak at some upcoming software. I picked a software release that won’t be happening for years and I gave ten “secret” facts about it. Of course I was “lying”, I just made up new comedic features that were so over the top no one could take it seriously. It ended up getting some twitter love and was one of my more successful posts. The creator of the software even retweeted it and thanked me for giving him a good laugh.

    2. Cheat! We covered lies, so now lets move on to cheating. What evil ideas will I come up with here? Well once again, it is a little ,vanilla. I think for us bloggers consistency is key. If you release posts everyday you will get Google love and more traffic. Sometime this is impossible though. I have had days so busy I can’t possibly get a blog post out. That said, my RSS subscribers still got a notification in their email about a new post…because I cheated!

    WordPress and most other blog platforms allow you to schedule posts. When you are “feeling it” and ready to crank out content — crank out as much as possible and then like the infomercial says: “set it and forget it!”. You can even keep a couple blog posts in a text file so you just have to copy and paste on your busy days.

    3. Steal! Alright this is clear cut, I obviously meant you should go to someone else’s blog and steal their content. This is simple! It is also plagiarism and I’m joking, I do not support that.

    What you can steal are ideas! Browse your favorite blogs and get inspiration from them. You can easily and honestly get a topic or general themes from them. You can also go one step further and use a part of their post in your post. You can review their blog, you could review a video they made or you can take a single quote from their blog post (with attribution of course) and discuss your feelings about it. Stealing is usually frowned upon but I think in this case blog owners will be happy to receive exposure from your site.

    We grew up learning not to lie, cheat or steal. I think the majority of people would agree they are wrong but even the most prudent person would agree my methods are pretty tame. If you are in a rut then don’t forget; you can lie, cheat and steal your way to creating constant content! This should give your blog a much needed boost, and hey sometimes it feels good to be bad.

  • Why is Twitter So Important?

    Video: Brad talks about why you should be utilizing Twitter as part of your social media strategy.