Here on the Totally PLR blog I want to give you some seriously useful, easily actionable ways you can use private label rights content. Because I know how precious time is and I’d love to help you save some that you can use on other activities in your business.
To keep me accountable, I joined Sarah Arrow’s 30 Day blogging challenge and I have to say that it’s giving me some great practice at creating good content, fast. It’s also been great to get feedback on my posts, especially from people who previous had no idea what PLR was, because they were able to show me all the places where I was assuming readers already knew what I was talking about!
One of the questions that came up was “do you have a post on when not to use PLR, Helen?” I didn’t, but I immediately set about writing one and here it is…
Hmm….when should you not use PLR? Actually I struggled to come up with a definitive list, and that’s not just because I sell PLR. I really do feel you can use it in most situations, because the quality and relevance of the end result that matters, not where it came from.
(Assuming you’ve respected copyright laws and haven’t stolen the content, of course.)
Possibly on your own blog
I’ve read a few articles now stating that you should never use private label rights content on a blog, but I don’t think it’s that clear-cut. It depends on the blog, the PLR and what you do with it. If you have a blog which has a very personal style where you mainly share your thoughts and opinions, then posting a ‘5 ways to…’ – style PLR article, unedited, on your blog is going to be really jarring. So I agree that’s a bad idea.
But if you have a blog with more of a ‘how to’ style, which may also include a lot of opinion, you could easily fit PLR into it seamlessly. Just put your opinion and personal experience at the top and bottom of the post and use the lightly edited PLR for the step-by-step part in the middle, for example. This way, you’re simply using the PLR to speed up the writing process.
You could also use PLR just now and then, for a series of posts on a particular subject or to help you schedule some posts a few weeks ahead if you have a busy period coming up. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.
If it’s a guest blog post
Don’t use PLR for guest posts on other people’s blogs. This is considered bad etiquette because the blogger has given you a spot on their own blog and in return you’ll be expected to give a valuable, original post that you have written yourself.
If you’re faking it
One use of PLR that does make me uneasy is when people use it to pretend they have experience that they don’t really have.
This isn’t too much of a problem in my own area, for example, someone who owns a coaching program on starting a home business could buy my WordPress PLR videos to go in their module on setting up a website even if they weren’t a WordPress expert themselves. I doubt anyone would feel that was being dishonest. In fact, I’ve even been part of a membership myself when the owner has stated “Here are some tutorial videos on setting up a website. They aren’t by me, obviously.” And it was no big deal because the videos were helpful and accurate. It didn’t really matter who had recorded them.
But where it would make me uneasy is if someone bought some health PLR and used it to suggest they had expertise in an area they actually didn’t. To me, that’s very different to an expert in that subject buying PLR to speed up content creation.
If you’re building a writing portfolio
If you’re promoting yourself as a writer or copywriter, I think you’d be on shaky ground if you passed off even an edited PLR article as your own. The private label rights license may well allow this, but if your future clients found out they may not be happy about it.
There are a few exceptions, though. I believe there’s a difference between explicitly stating that you wrote an article and posting an article on a blog that could have been written by anyone. The line between the two becomes hazier if you set up a blog specifically as a writer’s portfolio, I guess.
But a writer could certainly set up a blog of tips and tutorials for other aspiring writers using private label rights content. Being a writer doesn’t necessarily mean you can never use PLR.
Being able to re-write PLR well is a skill in itself (it took me a bit of practice to do this!) so a writer may even be able to offer this a service?
If it’s bad private label rights content
There’s no doubt that bad PLR is harder to work with. It might even take longer to knock it into shape than it would to write it from scratch, so you need to decide on a case by case basis whether to bother using it.
But even then you can sometimes use a bad pack to prompt new ideas. In a ‘5 ways to…’ article, the grammar might be dodgy and the content boring, but you could use it as list of bullet points and write around those. You just wouldn’t want to pay much – or anything at all – for it.
Bad video PLR would be much harder to knock into shape and I doubt it would be worth the bother.
If it’s against the rules of the platform
If you’re planning to upload PLR to a third party platform always check the terms first. It’s not allowed in Kindle books and at Udemy, for example. In fact, using it could get your account closed for good with no chance of opening another one so it’s just not worth the risk.
Any other reasons not to use PLR?
I honestly can’t think of any others. If you can, please do drop me a comment!
If you’d like me to recommend you some good PLR, join my mailing list – just add your email address on this page to join.
You can’t use it as a guest post and you can’t use it on Kindle. I think what annoys me the most is people who use it to imply the experiences they don’t have. Last year there was challenge PLR. And so many coaches were showing people how to do challenges that had never done one in their life…
I agree, I don’t think it’s right to use it to suggest you have knowledge that you don’t have. Great point about Kindle and guest posts, I’ll add those to the list.
You made some good points, especially about not using PLR for guest posts and third-party platforms. I’ve seen ads for PLR with “…use on Udemy…” in the sales blurb.
Your use of “?” Hmmm….it’s question mark to be used when you ask a question. Your sub-head, “If you’re blogging?”, are you asking me or telling me? IMO it doesn’t make sense with a “?”
Interesting post 🙂
Thanks Shan, good point I’ve reworded the heading to get rid of that question mark. You could possibly use PLR on Udemy if you bought text- or PowerPoint slide-based PLR, edit content and created a video course based on it but (unless they’ve changed it recently) you’re not allowed to upload PLR videos. Which makes sense as they wouldn’t want a whole series of near-identical courses in their marketplace.
Helen
Thank you for writing about PLR. This is a subject that I know very little about and it looks like that a lack of experience could be very serious.
Do you use Blab to share more information on this subject?
Roland
Thanks for stopping by, Roland. I haven’t done a Blab so far as I’m a fairly new PLR creator and I’ve been focusing on getting some products on my shelves! But it’s certainly something I could think about. Would it be helpful? My plan was to do more videos on how to use it on my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/HelenLindop) but there’s no reason why I can’t do both.
Great points here Helen and yes I get annoyed when I see people suggesting that you can use PLR to create content for Amazon, when you clearly can’t.
Just started using Blab, maybe we could do one together and share tips on PLR?
Thanks Sue, I’ll be in touch about the Blab!
Excellent points Helen. I think this type of post is necessary, especially in a niche that is overcrowded with bad internet marketers and coaches.
I rewrite PLR for bloggers and many post them directly to their blogs. These are usually recipes and short tip articles. The key to using it on a blog would be to have original content too.
I agree with Sarah in using PLR to fake expertise. Teaching comes with responsibility and part of it is selling products honestly even if that product is YOU.
Thanks Sara, great point about also have original content on the blog, too. I think mixing good, relevant PLR with original posts is a great way to speed up blogging. Looks like using PLR to fake expertise is something many of us aren’t happy about.