How To Rewrite PLR Articles

Before I start talking about the actual rewriting process I would like to underline the point preparation. See, if you plan out what you need to do and gather the tools and materials you need for the rewrite in advance, you will be able to save a lot of time doing this. So what do we need to start off with?

1. Article Package
2. Keyword research
3. A list of “related” keywords
4. Alternate Content
5. A few hours to spare

You already have the article package and the keyword research that comes with it – plus

you’ve chalked off the time you think it will take to get this done.

Related Keywords

The first thing you want to do is create a list of related keywords for your keyword list (taken from the keyword research file). Some like to call them synonyms, but this list is more than that (although you can use software to generate a bunch of synonyms for each keyword and dump that in a text file to get you started).

Put in synonyms, keyword tangents, product names, and key terms from the niche. When you are brainstorming related words branch sideways to related niches and upwards to the general niche. For example, if I’m rewriting an article on antioxidants I’ll make sure that I use vitamins (related) and health (general) as ‘related’ keywords.

You can then use these when you are in a rush to rewrite sections of the articles. Makes life a lot easier.

Alternate Content

Ok, I admit that I just came up with this name. But the idea is older than I am, so there’s no denying its effectiveness. Basically, what you want to do is introduce content into your articles apart from the traditional article text. To explain this better, let me define the term “alternate content”.

Alternate content: information in a different medium. If your site is content site, branch out into images, downloadable reports, audio (podcasts, music), video, search…

Before you start rewriting the articles, come up with at least 3 different ways of producing alternate content to support your new VRE site.

Example:

One of the article packs has the parent keyword “learn guitar”. If you were asked to find 3 different things you can add to your site apart from articles on this niche, what would you add?

Here are some ideas:

• Videos – people showing how to ‘handle’ a guitar, how to perform guitar
• maintenance, etc.
• Music sheets (is that the correct term?)
• Images – not of you and your dog, but of guitars and famous guitar players.
• Guitar sites from around the web
• An online store – sure, you are probably signed up as an affiliate, but why not
• ‘sell’ the product on your own site and send them over to the affiliate only for payment processing and beyond?
• Tips section
• Glossary of terms
• A guitar learning / playing FAQ

This way, not only will you be creating something that is link worthy in your niche, but you will also be helping yourself create internal sources of content that you can add and link to from your articles.

Where to get this content?

Of course you don’t have to create it yourself. If you do have a background in the niche or can rely on someone else to do this for you cheaply, that’s excellent. If not, you will have to search the Internet for it and get it from somewhere else.

Should you copy other people’s material? Absolutely not. Link back where necessary, give credit every single time. If there is content that you cannot copy off someone’s site without running into problems, just link to them from your site.

You can easily get quality, topical non-royalty images for free. If you’re pressed for time, just copy the image from someone’s website and make sure you link back to them and clearly give them credit for the image.

In short, make sure that your website becomes a magnet for your target market – it cannot be all things to all people, but it must be remarkable in a way that attracts attention immediately – and the best way to do that is to provide your visitors with amazing value.

Note that this approach will help in three ways:

1. Get you more links
2. Get you more affiliate sales
3. Get you more visitors from the search engines

If you narrow your focus, you’ll spend too much time tweaking sites and not enough time building new ones. Set yourself a limit to research and find alternate content, and then get on with it. It may seem daunting, but here’s a thought – you know your topic, right? Why not search for the following in Google:

· “keyword” + FAQ

· “keyword” + Glossary or “keyword” + Definitions

· “keyword” + images (search on Google’s image search for this one)

That makes it a lot simpler to pick off content from other sites, and then link to it (or in cases such as definitions and FAQs, use snippets of them.

Remember – Time is money and you should put more effort in promoting the site than in building it.

Article Rewriting in 10 Steps

We want the reader to click on our ads, yes, but we also want to make affiliate sales. The challenge to making both of them coexist is to have incredibly focused content and structure it so that each article contributes towards selling the reader on the idea of buying what you are promoting and at the same time, refine your AdSense so that you can make money off the one-time search engine visitors.

Step 0: Read the Article

All right, this is a non-step – go through the article once so you have an idea of what it is about – this will help in rewriting it later.

Step 1: Change the Headline

Keywords always come first, but can you change the headline to add something more creative at the end? A headline must also be short to work well, so you’ll have to balance that too. Your best bet is to add a related keyword to the headline – for example, if the article is on antioxidant supplements add the words healthy or health into the headline. And make sure that it makes sense and isn’t gibberish.

Step 2: Add a subheading

The subhead, despite its notoriety in sales letters is actually quite useful in providing focused, relevant information about the article to the reader.

Step 3: Rewrite the introduction paragraph

Most readers skim through the headline, the subhead, the intro paragraph and then go down to the end to see if anything catches their interest. Depending on where your ads are placed, you want them to at least read the first couple of paragraphs – and the only way they are going to do that is if they can understand it quickly without thinking too much about it.

If your intro paragraph is a bit obtuse (long-worded, difficult grammar, etc), rewrite it in simple, plain conversational English. Not only will it change things around from a Search Engine’s perspective, but it will also help from a reader’s point of view.

With PLR articles you have a slightly difficult problem as their writing is pretty good. In such a case, just reword the intro paragraph and don’t worry about changing too much or too little. Think of a different way of putting across the same point, do it, then move on.

Step 4: Insert Alternative Content

If you’ve followed my earlier advice, you would already have a set of images for your website. It doesn’t matter if you have 10 pictures and 40 articles – you can reuse them or leave some of the least important articles bare.

Another idea would be to include a link box in place of the picture – and then those links could lead anywhere – to your affiliate’s site, to a ‘related’ page inside your site, to a related article on another website, etc.

If you are using WordPress, there is a ‘related posts’ plugin that does this quite nicely. You can also experiment with selling text links off your website or using the link ads AdSense provides.

Still, its best if you provide some original, related AC in the article.

Ok, so whatever you’ve chosen (link to a video, links to internal pages, a picture, music sheet), place it near the top of your article. Simple HTML / CSS will allow you to align it so that the text wraps around the image / content section. Your AC should be near the top and should be clearly visible.

Step 5: Rewrite the second paragraph

Less effort than before, but the principle is the same – read what is written, process it and then rewrite it as you understand it. This is where college and all those hours of paraphrasing academic papers come in handy.

Step 6: Create headings in your articles

Break up your article into 2-3 sections, give them headings and rewrite the first few lines that go after each heading.

Step 7: Create a list(s) in the middle

Again – break up a paragraph or two and turn it into a list – whether it is of features, of symptoms, a checklist, etc.

Step 8: Rewrite the last paragraph

You’re almost done – go through the last paragraph and rephrase them again. Follow the tips given in the previous section for what type of words to use, but basically as long as you stay on topic, use related keywords and paraphrase, that’s all there is to it.

Step 9: Create a call to action at the end of the article<