by EricHammer on January 26, 2012
You know the old saying where a good salesman can sell snow to an Eskimo? Well, even though PLR products are ubiquitous, it is indeed possible to make money selling them as well. Don’t believe me? Read on and find out why you don’t need to be as good as the salesman who can sell now to an Eskimo in order to sell PLR products:
What Is PLR?
If you’re relatively new to the Internet marketing world, then it’s possible you won’t know what PLR actually is. The acronym stands for Private Label Rights and in essence it refers to content which you can purchase (or sometimes get for free) and then rebrand with your own name.
Think of it as equivalent to the generic brands of food products in your local supermarket – Kroeger and Giant Eagle don’t actually manufacture ketchup themselves. They hire companies who manufacture the stuff for dozens of others (often for name brands by the way) and slap their own labels on it. PLR works the same way.
Why You Can’t Make Money with PLR
No, I don’t believe this is true. However, I do want to expose why people believe PLR won’t make money. The reason is simple: the stuff is ubiquitous and will be ignored in a Google search. This means that even if you buy high quality PLR content, putting it on your blog or website is unlikely to help you make any real money. You need to be adding your own quality content in order to generate traffic.
Why You Can Make Money with PLR
The thing is, those who say this, while they are generally correct (though some PLR content, if it’s good, can be useful since it can keep your blog full of useful content for regular readers) aren’t being very imaginative. PLR content can for example be used to send out newsletters and you can also resell PLR software (there are hundreds of PLR software products available online, especially plugins for things like WordPress).
You Can Also Change PLR
The other thing that makes it possible to make money with PLR content is that it can be changed to make it something unique. I sometimes will look up PLR content and use it as the basis for content I need to write for a client. No, I won’t sell my client rehashed content. I don’t even use the same sentences. However, the research that was done doesn’t need to be redone when you use PLR.
Plus, if all you need is content for a blog or newsletter, you can very easily rewrite only some of the content and get it ranked in Google just like original content.
The Key to Using PLR
The key I think to using PLR content is to use it sparingly. Don’t make every blog post a PLR post. Intersperse them with real content. You should also ensure that you check the information and grammar/spelling in PLR content to ensure that it really is well written and well researched to ensure that you don’t end up putting up something which looks like junk.
Bottom Line
Yes, you can make money with PLR content. There are dozens of ways to use the stuff. However, you need to ensure that you use it correctly.
Tagged as:
Google,
make money online,
PLR,
seo
by EricHammer on January 20, 2012
The short answer to the above question is no, Google will never be able to eliminate spam. Plain and simple. No matter how good Google’s algorithms become, without human intervention to check and approve every single web page they index (something which is virtually impossible to do), they will never get rid of spam. Here’s why:
Computers Aren’t People
I really should qualify the above statement by saying that based on what I currently know and understand about computers, Google will never be able to eliminate spam. The reason is really simple: computers are not people. No matter how fast or well programmed a computer is, ultimately, it doesn’t “think” the way a human being thinks.
Even Watson, IBM’s Jeopary winning computer basically works by comparing millions of possible choices and then making the best guess. However, it’s still using a logical process to figure out what a question may be asking and this means it is not infallible. It doesn’t have the ability to discern certain things the way a human being can.
They Can Reduce Spam Greatly
Now that said, good algorithms can reduce the incidence of spam greatly. They can for example weed out spammy looking sentences, they can look for duplicate content across different websites and they can look for other telltale signs of a spammer. This is what Google relies on today not to inundate searchers with piles upon piles of spam. However, this cannot account for human ingenuity.
Any Lock Created By Man…
There is an old saying that any lock created by man can also be defeated by man. What this means is that even the most secure and sophisticated locking mechanisms will have some kind of a flaw in them which will allow a human being to find a way to defeat them, given enough time and patience. The reasoning is simple: ultimately, there will always be someone, somewhere who is just as clever as you are and who can figure the thing out.
I personally haven’t tested this theory and I do know that some of the top locks and safes in the world are virtually impervious to being picked or defeated by thieves, however, they all say they are “virtually impervious” because there is always the possibility that another human being will figure out a way to defeat that which you created.
Computers Are the Same
I personally believe that computers are the same way – ultimately, computers are still programmed by people and this means that no matter how sophisticated Google is in creating new and better algorithms to try to beat back spam, people will continue to innovate and find new ways around the spam filters.
People Are Lazy
Plus, no matter how much effort Google’s engineers put into eliminating spam, ultimately, they can’t eliminate the one thing which makes spam inevitable: human laziness and greed. Most people will always seek the easiest way to make money or get something done and will always try to find ways to “beat the system.”
That’s because most people, by their very nature, are lazy. They don’t want to have to work. It’s not anything against anyone in particular. It’s simply part of human nature. And this means that no matter how sophisticated Google’s engineers get in finding way to eliminate spam, they’ll never do away with the human desire to find easy ways to accomplish something and ultimately get away with something.
Incoming search terms for the article:
Tagged as:
Google,
seo,
serps,
Spam
by EricHammer on November 11, 2011
Today, I’m going to share with you something that few SEO professionals share with any of their customers. Too many SEO professionals want to pretend that they can work miracles and they have all the answers. Or they make it sound like they have some kind of secret in. Here’s the real deal – 4 realities of SEO that you need to know:
Good SEO Can’t Make Up for Junk Content or Products
Yes, we can help you get to the top of the rankings with SEO. However, ultimately, making the sale or not is up to you, not us. Here’s a great example: I’m a diabetic and I recently read about a store which claims to specialize in foods for diabetics and celiac disease sufferers. I went down there the other day, all excited hoping to find some exotic foods I usually have to order online.
Getting me to get there was just like SEO – I learned about them and went to look. However, making the sale was the part of the job they failed miserably at. It turned out they had two aisles of assorted sugar free junk food and that was basically it. My local supermarket has a larger sugar free section than these guys do. I walked out disgusted and will not be back.
The same thing can happen with your customers – if they show up because we did our job on the SEO side, it doesn’t mean they’ll stay unless you have what to offer.
There are No Guarantees
SEO is as much an art as it is a science. There are no 100% guarantees in the world of SEO. That’s because there are too many external factors that can affect your SEO program. So anyone who guarantees you 100%, no matter what that they’ll get you number one rankings for popular keywords is likely lying or is going to suck so much money from you to do it that you’ll end up wishing they were just lying.
On the other hand, what can be said is that it is possible to rank highly and in some cases at number one for some of your keywords, especially the long tail ones.
It’s Not That Hard
People tend to think that SEO is this complicated magical secret. It’s really not all that hard. If you have the time to master the fundamentals and then do the grunt work, you can do it yourself. The thing is, most people who run an online business have better things to do than learn the ins and outs of SEO and do all that grunt work.
That’s why you hire us – think of us as being like the roadside help that you call when there’s a problem with your car. Sure, you could learn how to fix it all on your own and it’s really not that hard to learn about it and do most things yourself. However, most of us have better things to do than learn the ins and outs of our car engines.
It’s Not a One Time Thing
I like to compare doing SEO to doing the laundry. No matter how much laundry you just washed, the moment you finish, you’ve got more to do since the clothes you wore while doing the laundry probably need to be laundered. And with SEO, even once you mount your campaign and get to the number 1 spot, you can’t expect to stay there without continuing to invest time and money in doing so.
Incoming search terms for the article:
Tagged as:
Google,
internet marketing,
Page Rank,
seo
by maira on January 2, 2011
The job of an SEO has brought innovation in how online business make marketing strategies but remains at a controversial stand when it comes to major search engines, Google in particular.
There have been problems, debates and rebuttals for years now regarding how Google feels about search engine optimizers (SEOs) and has left people wondering – does Google really care?
It all depends on how you approach the question however. You could be asking whether Google cares enough about SEOs to make strategies for or against them or you could be asking if Google cares for and nurtures SEOs. The answer to the latter is a blatant no.
Google’s stance on SEO has been quite a negative one for a long time now. There are activities of some SEOs to blame however that have made Google generalize and deal with all SEO activity in the same manner. The people at Google realize too how important SEO is as a tool for marketing today but they don’t want to support it due to SEO turning black hat.
Recently, Google published a document on their website explaining the role of the SEO in the lives of users of the Web. It highlighted duties like writing copy, giving advice on website architecture and helping Web companies find good directories to link to their sites.
Those duties are but part of what SEO is all about and Google doesn’t want to have to do anything with any other functions of SEO.
The whole document also highlights how a few unethical SEOs have brought a bad name to the online marketing industry by manipulating searchengine results.
An SEO will argue though, that what Google thinks should be the functions of SEO are trivial and not what SEO is all about. What they call ‘manipulation’ is actually intelligent use of search engine results to gain feedback on online marketing strategies.
As Google also leaves out SEO copy writing in the document, it steers clear of showing any support for how SEO writing can help in increasing a website’s ranking in search results.
It is ethical SEO that Google should start turning their head towards and start caring about, which they don’t.
For instance, if there are 1000 pizza joints in New York, all having websites, searching for “Pizza joint New York” technically makes all of those 1000 joints relevant results. As Google only displays 10 results per page, what makes one website more relevant top come up in the top 10 is determined by Google’s algorithm.
If a pizza joint owner decides he wants his website to show up in the top 10, he approaches an SEO. There is nothing wrong with that but Google has been having a hard time calling it ethical.
To turn things in SEOs’ favor however, the actual unethical optimization like hidden links and spam words in websites’ pages will have to be brought to a minimum.
Whenever Google catches a website worked on by an unethical SEO using black hat techniques, it gives SEO an overall bad name.
Incoming search terms for the article:
Tagged as:
Google,
SEOs
by maira on January 2, 2011
According to traffic analysts Hitwise, Google’s search market share in the US has risen to a whopping 70% in 2010.
The rest of the market is shared by Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com. With this rising trend for Google been noted significantly since 2008, traffic analysts have been discussing everywhere what makes Google the search market leader.
Innovation
Although most people argue today that Google’s approach to searches today is traditional and might get outdated soon, the statistics support an opposite view.
Google’s basic search functions might be traditional but that is what has made them click for the masses. It is still extremely easy to use for searching and provides easy-to-generate reports for PPC workers and SEOs.
There is a lot of opportunity thus for competitors to come up with a more innovative search experience but looking at current figures, competitor search engine companies will have to work a lot to beat Google in the market now.
Semantic Web
Concepts like geoRSS are the talk of the hour and Yahoo, only second to Google in the search market has already announced its working on the concept. What that would do to semantic web indexing is phenomenal.
Users will be able to search for very specific queries like book reviews in a specific part of the world written by a specific group of people, for example. Although most search engines might seem too laid-back to take this hard-working approach towards semantic web innovation, Google might follow suit.
Until Yahoo enables its search engine for this concept and makes competition interesting with Google, Google will remain the search market leader for sure.
Privacy
Initially, Google has been seen to be all up for user privacy and stressing on the importance of the relationship between users and the company.
Recently though, events have shown otherwise where misuse of user date by other users and by Google itself has come onto the scene.
With an initial public outcry and problems on a national level with some countries, analysts predicted a drop in market share for Google. It has however been growing since then too.
Although analysts may debate on and advocate the importance of privacy for users of Google or any service on the Web, users themselves feel otherwise, as shown by market trends.
Sharing of private data on social-networking websites has been rising exponentially over the years making room for behaviorally targeted advertisements. The same share of data has been seen in search terms on Google.
Today, users want to turn to Google to search for everything from self-diagnosing cancer to learning how to be a dominatrix in bed.
With users being completely okay with how they share their privacy online even after news of misuse of personal data, Google can be seen to be the search market leader for years to come.
Incoming search terms for the article:
Tagged as:
Bing,
Google,
Search Engines,
Yahoo
