One of the things that marketers always want more of, is traffic.  The idea is, the more traffic you have, the more sales you'll do.  Hmm, yeah, okay, not always true, but a good general principle to adopt.  (What you actually need is well targetted traffic, but even so, any traffic is good.)

I've always said you can get traffic just by writing, and that you also don't need to go out and get loads of backlinks either.  The concept is, if you write about anything and everything, you'll start to get search engine traffic because some of what you write will end up on the first couple of pages of Google.  (The power of WordPress and the pings it sends to the highly spidered global update servers.)

So I took out a new domain a couple of weeks ago using "Frank Haywood" with a .me extension.  (Work it out, okay?)

I don't want to link to it just yet as I want to see how much search traffic it will get just by me doing nothing but writing about stuff that occurs to me, and that I want to write about there and then.  (It's good practice for writing other stuff.)

This is proof of concept that just using a self-hosted WordPress blog and then writing every couple of days or so will start to pull search traffic.  No backlinks, article marketing or ANY kind of marketing, just writing about stuff that happens to me or pops into my mind, with no thought for good taste or any of the marketing stuff.

As a result, I'll begin to see the kind of things that people are searching for, and I'll learn this almost randomly – it's based purely on what I decide to write on for pleasure.

There's absolutely no monetisation on the site whatsoever yet, and there are only links out to stuff that I find interesting, and NOT marketing related.

Okay?

So three weeks ago I took out the domain, and a week ago I got my first two visitors via Google search for a write up of a cheap camera I bought from Tesco on an impulse buy because of the price.  (It's a good camera too – I'm pleased with it.)  The camera itself is small enough to fit in my coat pocket, so it's great for taking with me wherever I go, and I can pretty much forget about it until I need it.  It took me about an hour to do the write up.

Since then I've had another 7 visitors to the site, all from Google search, and all for that camera.

Now while I didn't write about the camera to make money from the review of it, I did write about it for pleasure and lo and behold, I started to get traffic.  I could monetise it by sending people off to the Tesco site using my aff link, but I'm not going to bother as that's not what that site's about.

For now. 

But you tell me.  How hard is it to get traffic?

Isn't this proof enough that if you pick a product that looks like it could be popular, and do a little research and a write up about it, that you will inevitably get visitors?

Now here's the thing.  People agonise over how to get traffic and then more traffic.  It's the one thing I get asked about more often than anything else.

I've proven to myself again that it isn't that hard to get traffic, and yet people still seem to have a difficult time getting the right traffic to their sites to match their topic.  That's what I get told.

But maybe, and this is a message to everybody who's interested in earning a living online, you should be looking at it the other way round.  Maybe you should instead be looking at what people are searching for, making sure there isn't too much competition, and then supply them useful content based on their interest, and then use your affiliate links to monetise it.

See the subtle difference?

Many people choose a topic that's either too broad or too competitive.

The learning point here is if you want to make money from blogging, then choose a more tightly focussed topic and make sure there's some interest, but also not much in the way of competition.

You'll then find if you write about the subject and because you're filling an empty content gap, Google etc will be interested and take notice of your site.

Okay?

I'll continue to write for pleasure (and to blow off steam every now and then) on that site, and maybe sooner or later I'll come across some niche or another that gets a lot of interest, purely by accident.  Who knows what it might be, and when that might happen?

I won't lose any sleep over it because that's not what that site is for, but it's certainly an interesting experiment to do, don't you think?

-Frank Haywood

Well, if you've never done it you might be forgiven for thinking that it can be very hard. After all, you have to be a bit of a writer – don't you?

No, I don't think so. I think it's perfectly possible to do it well if you can speak normally. You can speak normally, can't you? You really *don't* need to be a good writer.

Here's the thing: Private Label Rights materials pay off, because they do what most of us are not good at doing. They get us started. It's a big task to start with a blank page and try to think of things to say. That's a big task even for professional writers! They have a fancy name for when they can't do it – "writer's block".

The fact is that most people find it easier to look at what's wrong with something that already exists. Then they can change it, bit by bit. Finally, they have a complete article, or product, ready to sell. Let me give you a little test, to prove it to you.

I want you to read the next few lines and *in your head* work out how you could say it better. Actually say it to yourself in your head – or even out loud if you prefer.

"When time comes to making a whole bunch of money but you cannot think what it is you should do to do it, you should spend some time on your own to think about what it is you should do and then you'll come up with a plan to do it."

Go ahead – fix that in your head. You don't have to type anything.

Did you actually try that little exercise? Did your version sound better than mine? It should – mine was awful. Deliberately awful, but still awful.

So, what's the point I'm making?

*You* just edited and fixed an entire paragraph.

How many paragraphs do you think you have to edit and fix to get a full article all spruced up? It could be as few as 8 or 10.

It's really not as hard as you think, is it? Here's where human nature comes into play. If I tell you to edit 600 words that sounds like a lot. If I tell you to edit 10,000 words your brain will flip! 10,000 is a *lot* of words. But the reality is that you don't edit 10,000 words. You edit a few at a time. So instead of thinking about editing a full article, or ebook, think about editing just 1 sentence.

Honestly, doesn't that sound a lot better? A lot easier, too?

You see when you're faced with a big task, you really can't do it all at once. But for so many of us our brain thinks that we *have* to do it all in one go. But because we get to make the rules, we can take 2 goes – or 50 if you want.

Will it take longer doing it that way? Well, not really, because if you get overwhelmed by the full job you'll never do it – so it will take forever. And just the fact you won't feel stressed out should help you work faster too.

If you have some plr articles sitting around, gathering dust, here's a suggestion for you.

1) Commit to editing 1 article.

2) Allow yourself the luxury of editing *only* 1 sentence a day. This is a strict rule! Do not do 2 sentences, even if you feel like doing it. Do 1 sentence and then save your article, ready for tomorrow. Strictly 1 sentence a day – no cheating!

3) Each day, open your article and continue where you left off. Edit another sentence. On some days it might take you literally 15 seconds to make the changes. Nobody on this planet is so short of time that they can't find 15 seconds.

4) As you continue, remind yourself that you have less to do now than you did yesterday. Each day you have even less to do than the day before. The job is getting smaller every day and you still only have to edit 1 sentence today.

5) When you reach the final sentence, edit it and save your article. Then, look back over the full article and see just how much you've edited – more than you thought you could do when you began. And you did it all 1 sentence at a time.

For fun, compare the original article and your edited article. Take some pride in the fact you did it. You edited an article.

6) Submit your article to at least one of the many article directories.

Congratulations!

But let's also be realistic here. You wouldn't want to work at that speed if you had 100 articles to edit. But always, always, start with 1 article and 1 sentence.

My guess is that somewhere along the way you couldn't help yourself and you edited more than 1 sentence. By telling yourself you were only 'allowed' 1 sentence, you made it irresistible to do more. That's just human nature. So always tell yourself you'll edit 1 sentence. When you do more – and you will – you can reward yourself for doing better than you committed to.

That's just a little trick that makes it easier to do the work without freaking out. Here's another one that might work for you. Let me explain it with a story.

I hate swimming. I mean the mind-numbing up and down, boring repetition. But I love the feeling I get afterwards. So for me I set my target of say 50 laps. Then I count down from 50. In other words every lap I do I have a reducing balance. So in my head I see ahead of me 50,49,48,47,46…

If I count up, it takes ages before I seem to have done any significant numbers. So counting up goes 1,2,3,4,5. Doesn't feel like much progress, but counting down I know it just keeps getting easier. It's easier to do 40 laps than it is 42 laps – that's a given. So my routine just keeps getting easier to achieve. That works for me – try it and might work for you. If you have 12 paragraphs to edit just count down after each one. 12,11,10,9,8 and so on. If it doesn't work for you just stick with the 1 sentence at a time tactic.

If you're writing material from scratch it's really just the same. Commit to write say 1 paragraph and when you've done that, stop for the day. I guarantee you that you won't be able to stop after 1 paragraph most of the time. But the fact you have given yourself permission to do so takes all the pressure off your brain.

To show you exactly what I mean I've created a video showing how I edit a plr article live, following these rules. You can view it at

http://www.sublime-products.com/articles/edit-plr/

-Amin Motin