A real long post today folks. Sorry, I didn’t mean to, I swear.
I’d thought I’d talk about content generation today, and some ways to simplify the process. I’ve been promising a post like this for a couple months now, so it’s probably long overdue.
As any internet marketer knows, one of the greatest challenges is to generate content for your sites. The more sites you have, the more of a headache it becomes to fill them with content. I know it is for me, with over 1k web properties out there in addition to a 100 or so farm blogs. At some point, it becomes absurd – you spend all your time just posting to your existing properties and not getting backlinks or creating new sites.
I’m not going to lie to you – there is no easy solution. Well there is, but it takes a lot of money, something most of you probably don’t have at this point.
There are really two ways of getting unique content: paying someone to write it for you or doing it yourself. Well there’s a third way, one that involves opening your own article directory ala Hubpages/Infobarrel/Ezine Articles. The third option is obvious the best one, but it’s probably something that’s beyond the ken for most people, so we’ll discount it.
I’m actually going to do a bit of an experiment and try to set up my own article directory. My idea is that if I can convince people to use it for article submissions, it’s free content for me to make money with and a good source of backlinks for them. However, to make it have any sort of value, it’s going to take some serious backlink work to give some domain authority to it. More on this in another post.
Generating Articles through Outsourcing
The best outsourcing I’ve yet found are Human Rewriter. You can check out my human rewriter review for my thoughts on this ( you are going to have to hunt through my massive post for it). In general, I’ve found the quality to be very high – higher than other outsourcing solutions. The catch is that you have to find an article to submit and, if you want to know a buck or two off the price, do a little bit of editing. This can be a major fucking headache when trying to submit 300-400 articles – so much of a headache that I gave up on the editing part completely. In my case, my time is more important than shaving a few hundred bucks off my outsourcing. You are looking about 10 minutes per submission, which includes finding an article to be rewritten, pasting it, adding an SEO title, keywords, and editing the article to lower the price (less sentences = cheaper prices). For batches of 20-30 articles, you are looking at 3 or so hours – not bad if you can get a very well-written 400 word article for say 3.50. If you are looking at 300 articles, well, expect to site there for a week. Still, if you are really trying to maximize your buck and money is more important than time, it may be worth it.
I do suggest you take advantage of their free 5 credit offer (5 bucks worth of articles) – you can at least get 1-2 free articles out of them. Free is free. I currently use human rewriter for hundreds of articles a month.
Another outsourcing company that seems to be popular is Textbroker. I can’t say how the quality is, since I have not yet used them. But I’m going to buy 100 or so articles from them – probably on the lowest quality tier. I’ve heard mixed reviews. I’m sure there are some people here who can give their opinion on this service.
For people who like to play craps, you may try CyberHub. You can get articles for 3 bucks. However, it’s a real hit or miss as far as quality goes. With 10 articles you may find 1 that could win the Pulitzer, 2 that are decent, and 7 that make something written on a notepad while riding a bucking bull look good. The waits can be very long though.
My personal rule is not to outsource unless you make 1k a month or more. The reason is that just pumping out content is NOT enough to make you money on the web. I know I have been preaching volume, and it works – fantastically well. However, you need targeted content in niches you have experimented in – niches that you know will do well with enough content in them. So for you people starting out MMO, don’t take out a couple G’s on your credit card or secure some high interest payday loan and pump the money into a few hundred articles. Get your hands dirty with writing articles for a few months, find out what works, then, once you KNOW you can make money (and your 1k a month track record proves it), look at outsourcing to improve your productivity.
And from personal experience, do not hire Indian writers or troll through MMO forums looking for 1-2 dollar articles. You get what you pay for – if you get anything at all. Seriously, who can fucking afford to spend 30 minutes writing an article for 1 buck? At best your work is going to be outsourced to zoo monkeys randomly mashing keyboard buttons with the intent to produce the first sentence in the bible. You get someone trying to prove evolution while taking your money. Nice.
I had some jackass steal 800 bucks a few months ago and not deliver shit. Paypal WON’T give you a refund if your hired writer decides to hit up a few nightclubs with your money.
With outsourcing, I find you have to pay about 5 bucks for a 400 word article to get something that sounds native-written – less with places like Human Rewriter. But remember, if something looks to good to be true, it probably fucking is!
Where to Use Outsourced Articles?
Money Sites and Solid authority sites or sites with adsense on them like infobarrel or hubpages. If you guys are making more money than you know what to do with, then sure, buy articles for backlink support – go articles, ezines, Squidoo, etc. However, I personally only use outsourced articles for money sites and good support blogs. Articles for backlinks, I do myself.
Generating Articles through Spinning
Now, what about generating content for your support support sites or your blog farms. Well, you can either spend a zillion hours writing bullshit for these sites, or you can do what the rest of use IM’ers do – spin.
Spinning articles is NOT a new concept and if you don’t know about spinning, I suggest you learn. Spinning is a great way to take a unique article and get another 100 unique articles from it. The main issue with spinning is that it takes a god damn stupid amount of time to create the syntax.
There are basically two types of spinning: single level spinning, and nested spinning. Single level spinning can make the article pretty unique, unique enough to get indexed by Google. Nested spinning adds a whole other dimension and can really make the article unique.
Here is an example of single level spinning:
The {best | top | most efficient way} how to {get rid of | eliminate| cure| stop} cancer is to not {smoke| inhale| puff} cigars.
Basically, everything enclosed in { } are a choice. Each time software converts spin notation to text, a random selection is made from the words in the { }. When you write an entire article in this format, you get a fairly unique article.
With nested spinning, you basically something even more unique. Here is an example of a nested spin:
{The {best | top | most efficient way} how to {get rid of | eliminate| cure| stop} cancer is to not {smoke| inhale| puff} cigars | {Get rid of | eliminate | stop} your cancer by not smoking}.
It looks more complicated, but what happens is that software will look at the first set of choices (in this case, the two full sentences that are serrated by the “|”)
{ sentence 1} | {sentence 2}
And fore each of those sentences, the software, spinner, or whatever will look for spin notation {}, and if any spin notaion is found for that specific sentence will select from the choices enclosed in the {}. Basically, you get something really unique. Still confused? Do a search on the web, or visit the www.jetspinner.com website. It’s not that hard to figure out how spinning works if you spend a few minutes playing around with it.
So, what’s the advantage of spinning? You can take a unique article (or a PLA article, or even someone else’s article) and rewrite it in SPIN notation, then use that spin notation to generate hundreds of unique articles from it. The more time you spend working in spin notation, the more unique your article will be and the better it will sound. Typically, you want 30% unique to get indexed by google and avoid the whole duplicate penalty. If you can get it up to 60-100% unique, you pretty much have a fountain of unique articles to use.
There are automated spinners out there – two types actually. Some auto spinners will only give you the spun version of the article you input while others will actually convert the article to SPIN notation – and you can use the SPIN notated version of the article for your own purposes (more on this later).
Jet Spinner is one such website that will spin articles for you – probably the most popular one and it’s free — if you input the spin notation. There are also a zillion programs you can downloan or buy that will spin articles as well.
Stay the fuck away from auto spinning though. There are programs that you can imput an article and generate a machine spin. Auto spun content is CRAP CRAP and in my opinion, not worth it. You get absolute garbage text back – any person reading such an article will know it’s spun. The search engines may index the article if the spin is good enough, but typically what happens is that all the long tails – those keywords that the search engine will index your support site for, which then can build some authority for that keyword to transfer to the site it links to – get mangled as well. And don’t even think about putting Adsense on an auto spun article. You are asking for a ban.
Now, the downside of spinning is that it takes a long time. If you are fast, you probably can do a 1st level spin of a 400 word article in about 1-2 hours. If it’s a nested spin, it can take 4-6 hours for a 500 word article (I know, I’ve done it.).
But, there’s a trick – and this is Magic Article Rewriter. I have this linked to under “Best Content Generation Software” and it’s true. I used this all the time. For creating high quality SPIN-notated articles, there is NO better tool out there. Basically, this lets you turn any article into SPIN notation in 10-40 minutes, depending on the level of SPIN you wanted added. The program basically streamlines the spinning process – but you choose the words. This results of a pretty high quality spin version – I’ve used some articles on support blogs and even a few on money sites as well.
For a nested spin, it will probably take you 20-45 minutes to do a very high quality, unique article. This article can probably pass on your support blogs or your money site. If you just want a fast 1st level spin for some low quality support blogs, you are probably looking 10-20 minutes if you really burn it.
What can I do with a SPIN Notated Article?
Spun article are GREAT for crappy support blogs or for blog farms – especially if you have a bunch in the same niche.
For example, say I have 30 blogger blogs about cancer, 10 hubs, 5 Squidoo, and various other web 2.0 properties about the same topic.
You can spend an 30 minutes (with MAR) or several hours (spinning by hand) creating a spin-notated version of an article in the cancer niche. You can then use spinning software (MAR, Jetspinner, or whatever) to generate as many versions as you need to populate ALL your crappy support blogs with the same unique versions of the article. This allows you to get that fresh content bonus from google and build up your support sites with unique content. This all helps the sites being linked to by the support sites.
How long would it take to put unique handwritten articles on 50 sites? Exactly — a long long time. Creating spin-notated articles let’s you one shot the entire batch with a single article.
Keep in mind that if your hubpages has adsense on it, I would not advise putting crappy spun content on any hub — or your money sites. Any site that has editors (like infobarrel, ezines) or peer watchdogs (hubpages), don’t give them crappy spun content.
With Magic Article Rewriter, you can create very well written spins that you can use for quality support sites and maybe money sites, but you need to make sure you spend some good time ensuring the article sounds good and is very unique.
In general, if I’m going to submit a spun article I use MAR on my money sites or web 2.0 properties with my adsense on, I’ll spend a solid 45-50 minutes doing a very unique spin that reads very well. Possible with MAR in less than an hour, but if you do it by hand, you are looking at 4-6 hours (that’s what it takes me).
Another use – probably one of the best uses – is to combine the power with spinning with some of the backlink networks. You can use SPIN-notated articles directly with Article Marketing Automation and Backlink Solutions (with some changes) and indirectly with Unique Article Wizard. These backlink networks basically submit you SPIN notated article to hundreds of blogs. Since each version of the article is unique, the article has a much higher chance of getting indexed. I’m going to talk about how to use backlink networks effectively (with some tricks) in another post. Backlink networks, in general, are NOT a replacement for solid, high quality links. But you can get a lot of quantity which can give you movement in the SERPS, hide your good links, and for no competition/ low competition niches, let you reach the top 3 spots. They are really useful for support sites – especially web 2.0 properties with domain authority that can survive a massive assault of links. More on this in another post.
I’ll be talking about backlink networks and how to use them effectively. I am tossing up creating a bit of a tutorial about how to create a niche wordpress blog – but there may be no need for these, since most of you out there SHOULD already know how to do this. I *may* add a forums to this site for people to help each other.
Auto Content Generation
One more content generation tool that’s very handy is Frank’s Blog Content Wizard. Frank is another one of us IM’ers, part of the Grizzly (Make Money) crowd. His tool is fantastic for creating Search Engine fodder. You can basically export keywords from Google’s Keyword tool into the program, specify how many articles you created, how many words, and the frequency of your primary keyword appearance. And hit a button. In a couple minutes, you will have content for your blog farms. The program has a massive database of English phrases, and it randomly inserts your keywords into the these phrases. You basically get an SEO rich article full of your primary keywords and related keywords. The articles actually, somehow make twisted sense. With an initial glance, it looks you like are reading something an English as a Second Language student or something someone taking a lot of LSD would write. But, if you clean up the first and last paragraphs, it probably won’t get flagged. Keep in mind, only put BCW articles on third tier support sites. Never on your money site or any site with adsense on them. If you want to know how this works with setting up a support structure for your site, read my how to create a blog farm post.
I won’t get into automatically generating content and sending it to blogs (that’s in the realm of auto scraper sites). You can make money like this — and it’s something I am testing. But, it’s a pretty risky model and something you probably should not invest time into unless you really know what you are doing.
Make Money Online Experiements
A few very quick updates.
Niche Devil
Lo and behold, I’ve managed to squeeze out about 100 bucks with my Spammy ND sites. I’ve done NO promotion on these things and a significant portion have not been indexed yet. I still have another 100 domains to throw up. Based on the success I’ve seen with just a handful, I’m interested in putting hundreds of these out there. However, I’m just not sure what money there is to be made in a couple months when ebay changes its pricing scheme. With pay per click instead of pay per lead, it could mean pennies per click – something not worth the time and effort.
I do have plans for creating 100 solid PHPBay stores in a couple months. I’ve already created a couple of these and they are earning consistently – 10-20 bucks a month. In the right niches and some promotion, I can see you could make a 100+ bucks a month witch each one. Again, waiting to see what this whole pricing change is going to be.
Authority Site/Flagship Blog Project
Finally started my authority site project. Got most of the content outsourced now. The site is going to have probably 300-400 targeted articles. And I’m going to have to build backlinks to every single post. I’m shopping around for a domain right now – preowned. I don’t want to deal with the headache of a new domain. A good preowned may save me months of work. My goal is to start a 300-400 article authority site EVERY SINGLE MONTH from now on. I can then rotate my link building from month to month. I’m not sure how many authority sites I can juggle at the same time, but I’d like to have 12 of these in a year, each major niche.
This is going to be a long term project. I don’t expect to see any money for a few months. We’ll see just how long it is before I can make any money. These types of sites take a lot of work and time to build up an authority site. I can make a killing once I get some authority though. I’ll talk more about how to build an authority site in another post.
Adsense Snipers
Love these. These are my biggest earners so far more than matching my Hubpage earnings and everything else. I’m behind with my schedule though. I’m trying to put out 3 of these a day, but that’s REALLY pushing it. I’m already at my max time wise. I simple don’t have enough time in the day (I still work a job) so hubs, snipers, backlinks, and authority sites in a single day.
Other Updates
New Infobarrel Revenue Sharing Module
Infobarrel is going to be announcing a new additional source of revenue sharing, so for those who are raking it in (and I know a few of you who are doing VERY well with just infobarrel), you will be able to add to your earnings.
About infobarrel. If you guys are trying to make money with infobarrel, you need to BACK your infobarrels up with solid links. Just throwing a ton of infobarrels out there without any sort of backlinks won’t see you too much money now. Once, it was possible, but there is a TON of competition now, so you need to send ezines, Hubpages, or other links to each IB you write if you want to rake in the cash.
WebSeo
So a bit over a month ago, I used Justin’s Web SEO service on 45 of my hubs. The results have been great. Traffic has gone up for those hubs and I’m making more money consistantly with them. I’d actually say the hubs that were submitted to all 3 backlinks services have the most traffic out of all my hubs. If you are looking for a quick SERP boost to your sites, but don’t have the money or time to use some of the expensiveve backlinks networks, give Web SEO a try.
In general, I don’t suggest touching your money site with backlink networks. They are best used on supporting blogs without adsense on them. You can get away with using backlink networks on web 2.0 properties that have a lot of trust with google (hubpages for example), but I would not advice on a self hosted blog you own — especially if it does not have a lot of authority in google’s eyes. They can do wonders at pumping up your support blogs, especially for low competition longtails. I’m going to post about backlink networks and how to use the right in another post.
How to Make Money Online without Work
Simple. You can’t.
The more I do this whole make money online thing, the more I realize how much work this is. I’ve been harping on this for months now, and it’s just as true now as it has been in the past. If you want to make money online with internet marketing, you are going to have to put gobs of work in. Anyone with delusions of spending an hour a day creating websites, give up now.
My model, right now, is volume. I pump the web full of my properties, send a few links and let them age. If I put out 1000 properties in a month, I know those properties will bring in money. Maybe not this month, or next month, but in time, they will. In a year, they will bring in far more money than in 3 months for now. All these properties can be used to sniff out niches which to deploy my own sites. All these properties can be used as a very high quality link farm. I can tell you folks, it’s a big big leg up to be able to start a new site and send 200 quality links from your other sites to support the new site. If you happen to have solid authority sites for link juice, you are laughing to the bank – ranking will be easy if you have authority sites in a related niche.
Unless you are incredibly lucky, you will NOT be seeing any real money within 2-4 months spending a couple hours a day building websites on the weekdays. To see quick results, you first need to understand how to make money online (as taught by Court, Grizzly, Vic, my blogs, or other people who know what’s up) and you need to do the work to get there.
If you can only do 2 hours a day, 5 days a week – that’s fine, but be prepared for the long haul before seeing money: 6 months, a year, maybe 2. Why? Because it’s hard to get enough shit done in 1- 2 hours a day to make a difference. Is it impossible? Probably not, but from what I’ve seen with my own MMO journey, that’s not enough time to make money in a short amount of time online.
I’ve been putting in 8-14 hour days, 7 days a week. There is no “secret” to my making money here. Oh, I know SEO and I’ve learned quite a few “tricks” from months of experimenting with niches, sites, SEO etc. But the basic difference between me and many of you is that I simply work 10 times harder. While you watch the latest episode of Heroes, go shopping, or sleep, I’m sitting at my computer, writing content, creating sites, and doing keyword research.
I have a lot of people asking me to teach them how to make money fast or asking me if I can show them a different method than Court or Grizzly shows. Some secrete trick to make a full time income in a few months. Because, hell, I’ve done it.
Sure, I’ll tell you what to do. Throwing your TV out the window, disconnecting the phone, lock yourself into your house, stop all social activities, and work for 4 months straight, all day and most of the night. Folks if you put this level of commitment into ANYTHING, you are going to be good at it – no matter what it is.
I realize some of us actually want to have a life – and that’s perfectly understandable. You can certainly make a full time income online going at it slow – as long as you are consistent. Go at this slow (but consistent), but make sure you are willing to wait a year or two before making solid money. There are no shortcuts here – you either do the work in a short period of time or the work over a long period. No matter what you do, the mountain is the same size and it takes the same amount of steps to get to the top. It’s just how fast you are willing to climb.
Damn it. And this was suppose to be a short post. Clocked in at 4k words this time.
See you next week. If I have the time.
Ben