The low-down on rewriting articles: What you need to know

I have good reason to believe that many of our Affilorama members are faced with the task of rewriting articles at the moment. (AffiloJetpack members, I am especially talking about you!)

If this is you, read on for my version of the who, what, where, when, how and why of rewriting articles.

What?

First things first, we are talking about rewriting articles that you have ownership of. This might be Private Label Rights (PLR) article packs that you have purchased, or if you've purchased AffiloJetpack content, the articles inside your niche pack.

This purchased content is yours to do whatever you choose with.

Why?

There are two main reasons why the article content from your AffiloJetpack niche or a Private Label Rights (PLR) pack needs to be rewritten:

1) You are not the only person who has purchased this content. If you put the articles on your site ‘as is', you risk being penalized by Google for having the same content as found on other websites (duplicate content), and therefore suffering a cut to your traffic sources.

An article that is 20% different from the original may escape this sting from the search engines; however we recommend you rewrite your articles to be at least 50% different.

2) The content is written using general keywords for a niche. In most cases you will need to optimize these articles and replace the general keywords with specific keywords that target a sub-niche you have chosen (that's another kettle of fish).

An example: If you are working within the weight loss niche, you might choose a sub niche that targets a particular demographic - over 50's, teens, pregnancy, male, etc. The articles you begin with will likely be written for a general audience, so you will need to rewrite these to target your chosen sub niche.

Where?

The default use of article content is to place them as articles on your website. These are there for SEO purposes - to build links, and bring targeted traffic to your website. You can then funnel this traffic into a squeeze page to sign up for your newsletter series, and capture these leads.

Remember though, that the article content you have purchased is yours to do whatever you want with, and there is nothing stopping you from using it for something a bit different.

For example, you might decide that a better use for your article pack is to use it to add to your newsletter series, or to combine it and make a free report to give to your visitors.

You might also choose to pull information from the articles and use it to create supplementary forms of content, such as video content, FAQs and glossary for your site. This type of content is particularly link worthy, both as a source for internal site links and for others to reference you.

Who?

This is the age-old dichotomy. You can either invest your own time into this, or pay someone to do it for you.

When?

The difference between article spinning and article rewriting is not immediately obvious. Let's clarify:

Unlike article rewriting which involves rewriting entire paragraphs and replacing keywords with your own, article spinning involves rewriting each sentence 3 - 4 times each, for use in spinning software that will generate 200 or so versions of your article.

While it can take a lot longer to rewrite each sentence of an article 3 - 4 times, the magnitude of the result is a lot greater. These spun articles are then submitted to article directories and other sites for link building purposes.

The primary purpose of rewriting articles is for use on your site, and you may also use these rewritten versions as a starting point for spinning articles to submit to directories, blogging and article sites.

How?

Before you begin, you will need to have chosen a keyword phrase you want to rank for, and an appropriate article to rewrite for it. If you're struggling to find close matches between your chosen keywords and the given articles, remember (AffiloJetpack members) that you can sift through your newsletter content for additional information. Creating a swipe file of additional research for your sub niche is also very helpful as it makes it easier to target your sub niche as you rewrite.

There are many different approaches to rewriting an article, what I'm explaining here comes recommended by Mark Ling and is an easy and effective way to get it done.

1. The first thing to do is read through the article once so you've got a clear understanding of the article in your head.

2. The next step is for you to read through it again, and pull out all of the key points in each paragraph, as you remember them.

Some people may prefer to skip the step of creating key points first, and jump straight to simply paraphrasing the original paragraphs. It's harder to create unique content using this method though, as you haven't distanced yourself from the original article.

3. After taking a few moments to distance yourself from the original article, you then rewrite the article using they key points that you made, one paragraph at a time. Here is an example:

Original paragraph:

"Some foods promote extra baggage around the middle, and others reduce tummy fat. It's not just a matter of how much you eat; the types of foods you eat can also have a drastic effect on your waistline."

Rewritten paragraph:

"The issue is not simply how much you eat, but also what types of food you eat. Some food types will reduce tummy fat, others will promote that extra baggage."

4. The next step is for you to replace the original keywords (in bold text in the example paragraphs) with the keyword phrase you want to target. It's also a good idea to use a thesaurus to replace a few words with synonyms - for example "baggage" with "mass". http://thesaurus.com/ is handy.

Remember that you need a keyword density of at least 1% in your article, with your keyword appearing once within the first 50 words. Be careful not to over-optimize the keywords in your article, as the search engines can identify this as keyword stuffing and penalize you.

How long is this going to take you?

It varies from person to person - an experienced article rewriter can rewrite articles in 15 minutes, while if you're new to this it might take you an hour or so to complete your first article. Don't stress out if you're slow to complete your first article rewrite, you will speed up with practice.

Use our Article Compare Tool (premium membership) to check the originality of your content with the original article.

Another useful tool is Copyscape. This will tell you if your article matches content that is already on the web.

Keep in mind that your rewritten articles don't need to be award-winning material before you put them on your site. You can always come back and revise your articles later on with extra information you've picked up as you're knowledge of the niche expands (and search engines love it when you update your content). This is an especially good idea for people who want to work on eventually developing an authority site and bring their content up to an exceptionally high level.