Even a half-baked idea is okay as long as it’s in the oven…

Search Engines are constantly on the look out for freshly written content that has been submitted online.  So how do you come up with ideas for your next article?

Here are 7-plus ideas for generating interesting articles fast…

Hang out in online forums. Watch what people are talking about. Look at the questions they are asking.  The topics that are bringing the greatest number of visitors would make for an excellent article.

Take a look at what information is being broadcast on TV, radio, newspapers, and online.  This information is usually a hot topic.

Read blogs. What are people posting about? What kind of comments are they leaving?  What questions do they have? Blogs are the hot internet marketing medium right now and you can literally find them everywhere on any topic.  This is an excellent source for your next article idea.

Survey your current customers or website visitors.  Ask them what kind of article they would like to see in your next ezine or published on your website.

Check bookstores online.  What are the top sellers?  This can be a good way to come up with an article that catches the attention of what people are reading.

Be seasonal. Write about what is going on that time of year.  Holidays, festivals, sports, graduations, etc. all make for an article that someone will want to read.

Write an article about a current fad.  There is always something that is hot at the time and could make for interesting reading from you.

Keep track of what your customers and prospects are asking you.  If you get an email or phone call with a question this may make for a good article.  Others may have the same question, but are afraid to ask it.

Start a swipe file on what others are writing about. If it is of interest to you it will probably be of interest to others. Never plagiarize the work of others, but you can certainly get good ideas this way.  The biggest benefit of a swipe file is having it handy to refer back to over and over whenever you are ready to write your article and are not sure what you want to write about.

Don’t waste those good ideas – start writing!

Creative Article Resources:

Public Holidays in the US

My Bloglog

Amazon Trends

Google Hot Trends

Ebay Auction Trends

Craigslist Topics

Yahoo Answers

Trends and Fads Online

Are you looking for an easy way to make money online?  If so, you are definitely not alone.  Unfortunately, many individuals don’t get past the first two or three pages of Yahoo or Google.  And frequently, many of these popular results are scams, slow earning opportunities, or just a plain waste of time.

If you are serious about making money online and with ease, examine PLR products.  PLR products, also known as private label rights products, come in a number of different formats.  The most common are articles and e-books.

Although there are many digital products available for sale with PLR status, articles are often the easiest to profit from.  This is because you have so many options.  For example, the articles can become website content, newsletter content, content for article directories, they can be transformed into an e-book and resold, and they can also be used as an online course.

Despite the options, you likely want to choose the easiest, yet most profitable option.  So what is it?

The easiest way to make money with PLR articles is to use them as website content.  Essentially, you create a content driven website.  Internet users love content websites.  A consumer looking to buy a dog may turn to the internet to research dog breeds.  A mom having trouble getting her toddler to sleep is likely to turn to the internet, and so forth.  If you put good, relevant articles on your website, people will come.

But wait!  How do you make money?  Most individuals make money through pay-per-click programs, like Google AdSense and affiliate programs, like Commission Junction or Clickbank.

Pay-per-click programs are nice because you get money each time someone clicks on your ads.  Affiliate programs, on the other hand, require consumers to make a purchase.  If a purchase is made through your embedded text link or banner, you get a percentage of that sale.  It is best to mix it up with both affiliate and pay-per-click programs to increase your earnings.  With affiliate programs, choose relevant products and retailers.  If running a pet care website, team up with individuals and retailers who sell pet related products.

Returning to using PLR articles as website content, you want a simple approach.

You are likely to take the PLR articles you created, copy, and paste them into a website building program.  This is very simple, but not the best way to make money.  PLR articles are sold to many people.  You don’t want to be one of 50 people with the exact same website.

The key is to re-brand.  Take the Microsoft Word document for each item.  Start at the top and work your way down. Reword the title, redo a few sentences, interchange a few words, add or delete paragraphs, and so forth.  You now have unique content.

Your website is no longer like the other 50 buyers who opted for the same moneymaking approach. Try http://EasyPLRPro.com for a great PLR article source.

Rewriting articles may sound like a waste of time or an added expense, but it is a wise investment.  Re-branding your own articles takes only 10 minutes on average.  Paid rewriters tend to work for around $5 to $30 a page.  Since you might have only paid $1 for each PLR article, it brings your total for each article to no more than $5 a page.  You couldn’t hire a ghostwriter to create new content for that price.

Consider it a wise investment and one that will soon payoff.

Best of Success!

One of the biggest hurdles most new writers face is finding ideas to write about. The easiest way to begin is to write about things you are interested in and preferably passionate about. You already have knowledge in these areas which can be shared with others. It is easy to under-estimate your own abilities in areas you are experienced in. Talented people are often surprised by the level of questions novices ask (it is important to remember that there is no such thing as a stupid question – only stupid answers).

Once you have decided on a general area, a good way to narrow the topic down is to focus on the problems that people have. Typically, people read articles because they want to be entertained or they want information. Writing entertaining articles is a particular and more difficult skill. However, writing informative articles can be as simple as sharing tips that you have learned. A guiding principle is to expect the readers to be looking for “What’s in it for me”.

You may already know the common problems that people have in the particular field, but if not, a good source of information is to look at related online forums and note the most common questions asked. If you don’t have all the answers a small bit of research can assist. Often the answers are readily available with a Google search which the readers could do themselves. However, you are adding value and convenience by providing a range of answers in a single document.

Most people don’t like to read large documents from the Web, so unlike long essays, articles tend to be around 400 words long. If you break the article into an introduction, a small number of sub-headings and a conclusion you may only have to write about 50 words in each section. The sub-headings may be for authoring purposes only, but if they are relevant they can be left in the final article.

The first draft should be for your eyes only. Don’t try to produce a final copy as you write. It tends to be much quicker to get your thoughts down and come back to edit later. The final step in the writing process is to proofread your article making sure that the writing flows and would be interesting to the reader. Ask yourself, ‘does the article provide information the potential reader is looking for?’ It can also be helpful to have someone else proofread the article. This is also the time to remove spelling and grammatical errors.

If you still have problems writing you may want to do a search for ‘article writing software‘. There are many packages around which can make the process easier. Similarly, there are numerous e-books available on the topic and many of them are available for free.

Once you have written your article you may want to add it to your own website as an item that search engines love – a piece of original content. If you add an ‘About the Author’ section with a link to your website, you can also submit it to article directories. As other websites publish your article you receive another thing that search engines look for, one-way back links. Article submission can be a tedious process, but software and websites that can submit to multiple directories in one go exist to make the job much easier.

After writing your first few articles you will find it is not as daunting as it first appears. You never know, you may even want to offer your services as a freelance writer on the Internet as a way to make some extra income.