You hear a lot online about duplicate content and much of what you hear would have you believe that you may lose a limb if you’re found to have any. The truth is that the “penalty” you may pay if you have duplicate content is just that you won’t get a good ranking, or you won’t get ranked at all.

The search engines are always looking for new and fresh content. When you submit the same article in multiple places the search engines will see only one of them as “unique” and all the other articles will be pushed to the bottom of the results pages.

What that means for you is that if you put the same article on your website or blog and then submit it to other sites, such as article directories, what could happen is that the article you submitted could get noticed first, then that version would be considered the  original and get the ranking while the version you put on your blog or website is considered the duplicate and ends up in no mans land.

That is not what you want to happen since your website won’t get the high ranking and additional traffic you were hoping to get by adding more content and submitting articles.

On the other hand, if you submit one version to your website or blog and then rewrite other copies to be submitted elsewhere you have the chance of getting all versions of the articles ranked. That means that instead of just one article or blog post getting noticed and getting a good rank, you could have several getting ranked.

How Different Is Different Enough?

One very common question people ask when they are rewriting multiple  versions of an article or blog post is: how different does each article have to be? Since no one really knows what the search engine algorithm looks for (and since those algorithms change all the time) it’s best to err on the side of caution.

You can never go wrong by having more original content. The more unique your article is, the more likely you will not be considered duplicate and will most likely me ok for many algorithm changes to come.

I usually just rewrite every article multiple times. If that just sounds like too much work, and if you don’t have the budget to hire someone to do it for you, at least try to have 50% unique content in your articles and blog posts.

If you aren’t sure how much unique content you have, there are many (free) software tools that can help. The one I use is DupeFreePro and I haven’t had any problems with duplicate content.

If you are using PLR content you need to make sure you change the content and really target the first paragraph or the first 50 or so words. That will make a huge difference in your content and the way it is viewed by the search engines.

Article marketing and blog posts are a very good way to drive all the traffic you want to your affiliate offers. To get the most out of the whole process, make sure that you add as much unique content as you can so you can steer clear of the dreaded duplicate content.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is one of those things
that can really give your website a boost, but it’s also
one of those things that can be very intimidating to
anyone who is just starting out.

For you beginners out there, here are some simple things
you can do to optimize your website (and yes, that means a
blog too) and start raking in more organic traffic for
free.

Here are simple search engine optimization tips you can
start putting into practice today:

1. Keep your content original. You hear this over and over
again, but it’s true, when it comes to the internet
content is king. Keep adding helpful information to your
website and your visitors will come back often and stay
longer when they do.

Keep adding helpful information to your website that is a
minimum of 50% unique (by the way, higher is better. If
your content appears to be duplicate the search engines
will keep on cruising right by and you won’t get ranked)
and you will get ranked high and benefit from all the
organic traffic you can handle.

2. Keyword density is another one of those things that
everyone seems to have an opinion on. Now, more than ever,
it’s important to spend more time focusing on the quality
of the content you put on your website and less on the
keyword density. That is what the search engines look for,
lots of happy visitors that spend time on your website.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you don’t want to have any
keywords or that keywords aren’t important at all. Ideally
you will want to have between 1% but no more than 4%
keyword density.

If you go overboard you will look like
you are trying to stuff keywords, and that won’t get you
any points with the search engines.

3. Make sure that you include your keyword at least once
in the first 50 words on the page. This is what the search
engines will see first so it’s important that you have
your keyword right up front.

4. The title of your page, called a title tag,is another
very important element of your onsite search engine
optimization.

These tags need to send a crystal clear message about what
your site is really all about. They need to be the main
keyword you want to rank for.

There are so many ways you can get more traffic to your
website, and for an online business, traffic is the name
of the game. Using methods that won’t cost you a penny
makes a lot of sense and will really help you your bottom
line.

Search engine optimization is one of those free methods.
Stick with these basics and you can see a big boost in
traffic in no time.

The first thing y0u need to consider is that you don’t want just any traffic.   There are people who are online just killing time, curios about a certain subject.  That’s not the people you want to target.

Then there are the people who are ravenous about a subject.  Whether it’s learning to earn  money online, fishing, knitting, pets, etc.   If they are passionate about  a certain subject and interested in buying products related to that subject, those are the types of visitors you want to attract to your site.

There are a lot of ways to get website  traffic, some of them cost money and have a steep learning curve and some of them are free and easy to learn.

If you are a beginner I would strongly suggest that you stay away from all the Pay Per Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) courses that claim they’ll help you drive a ton of targeted traffic to your website practically overnight.

PPC is a great way to drive traffic to your website, but, it costs money.  Depending on your niche and how much competition there is it can cost a lot of money.  There is a definite ‘art’ to using PPC effectively.  You will have a steep learning curve and will most likely spend a lot of money with little success in the beginning.

SEO is a great way to get traffic to your website for free.  But like PPC there is a bit of a learning curve and to see results from your efforts takes time.

Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t ever use PPC or SEO.  They are great traffic generation methods, but because of the time and money involved in using them I think anyone who is just starting out would be better off spending their time learning free methods of traffic generation such as article marketing.

The free methods are just as good as getting targeted visitors to your site and they are easier to learn.  There is still a learning curve, but it’s not nearly as steep and since the method is free to do you have nothing to lose while you are learning.

So pick out your product, set up your website and then spend at least your first hour of every workday driving traffic to your website.  If you do this consistently over time you will start seeing a nice steady flow of traffic.

Once you have started to earn money online you should invest in a course that will teach you PPC and SEO.  Just hold off until you are actually making money, that way it won’t be so tough in the beginning when you are spending more than you are making.