How to Acquire Unique Content for Articles

You’re sitting at your desk, and you have just made a coffee. Now you’re ready to get the creative juices flowing. You are going to write an article!

I mean, how difficult can it be, right? You’re an expert in your niche, a island of knowledge – yet amongst all of that understanding and personal experience, it feels so difficult to put 500 words on a bit of paper about any kind of subject. If this is the case, you have Writers Block…

So, at this point, what do we think of doing?

1. Throwing the laptop out the window (not the best solution).

2. Stare into space for a while longer trying hard to concentrate, in the hope that something will miraculously pop into your head for the first paragraph – or even the first line for that matter. But, nothing happens…

3. You outsource your writing to a virtual assistant.

Ok, I don’t know about you, but 3 sounds like a pretty good deal. Believe it or not, there are many people on the internet who take advantage of the benefits of article marketing – who never actually write articles themselves. It doesn’t mean that they don’t know what they’re talking about; they simply don’t know how to convey their ideas through an article. If you’re not a natural writer, and you would like to take advantage of article marketing, then option 3 is a no-brainer.

So,basically, all you need to do is to locate a really good writer, however, this is not nearly as simple as you may think. Article marketing entails following certain specific rules which must be obeyed. One of these rules is submitting unique content. I have come across several instances where people have bought articles and attempted to submit them, where unfortunately, some or all of those articles were rejected due to duplicate content. How is this possible? I will give you a few instances…

a.) The so called “Ghostwriter” has bought or downloaded PLR (Private Label Rights) articles, changed a few words here and there, and then tried to pass them off as unique.

b.) The Ghostwriter did perhaps write the articles – but sold (and still sells) them to anyone who is willing to buy in order to generate revenue. Unsuspecting folk often buy and publish those thinking they have a one-off unique content source.

c.) The Ghostwriter didn’t write anything at all, but just copied and pasted a free reprint article from a directory somewhere. So, how do you know if your articles are unique or not? Services such as Copyscape provide valuable tools for the checking of potentially plagiarised online material. Always put your article through such a service to verify that what you’re about to publish in entirely unique. If it isn’t, then you need to be paying a visit to the ghostwriter for a refund.

Finding an excellent quality article writing service that gives you real value for money can be difficult, but once you have a top-notch provider, your article campaign should be off to an excellent start.

Think to yourself, with your new marketing insight, what you will do with all of this newly found free time?

Michelle Dale is The Managing Director of Virtual Miss Friday, an Experienced Executive Virtual Assistant who collaborates with businesses and individuals with the sole aim of accomplishing their professional goals. Want to learn more about these comprehensive online business building success strategies? Join the Campaign for FREE Virtual Assistance right now!

What We Think Of Windows 7

It appears that people everywhere have a tendency to love or hate Microsoft, and the company has certainly had some harsh criticism over the years, most likely due to its widespread control of the personal computer operating system for such a long time. Before it became trendy and then eventually just plain sensible to use a Mac operating system, people used to constantly complain about the incredible variety of idiosyncrasies with Microsoft’s Windows operating systems. It seemed that once you just started to become used to a certain version, the Seattle-based company would unleash a new version on the world. If you were in the market for a new PC, you often didn’t have any choice if you had a particular preference for one version of Windows, as the newbie would be automatically “bundled in” at your local electronics store.

Microsoft did little to assuage its critics when it initially released its Vista version of Windows, supposedly to better the popular XP version. Out of the box there were problems due to unavailability of drivers or a counter-intuitive process of upgrading. It took quite a while for application providers to start releasing drivers to work with Vista, and the new OS came with an array of frustrating features and processes that made a lot of people really wish they had stayed with their XP operating system.

Late October saw the release of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system and the initial verdict is that it’s much better than Vista and really where we should be. Some have compared it favorably with Mac’s latest OSX version, which is good news indeed for Microsoft.

Windows 7 is quite a bit more secure than XP, whose users are square in the marketing crosshairs – as for the most part, they were the people who totally refused to upgrade to Vista. Even though Vista was toned down and made far more user-friendly during its “day in the sun,” the terrible press it received seemed to stick with it the whole time.

Windows 7 is much more efficient, requiring only half of the memory needed by Vista and it is much quicker to load on startup, also drawing less battery power on your laptop. Those who did not upgrade to Vista from XP will notice significant differences and will take a little while to get used to them, but those who went through the initial pain on Vista will see a much less clunky interface and one which makes the user feel that he or she is far less constrained to tabbing, resizing, fumbling around and the general “1990s” feel of previous incarnations.

For example, features such as Aero Snape allow you to put two applications side-by-side and copy and paste easily, Aero Peek makes windows that you’re not focusing on temporarily transparent and Aero Shake allows you to “shake” a window, thereby closing all others. In short, there’s a much more instantaneous action feel about the whole platform.

In recognition of the fact that homes now have multiple computers and that they should be linked together easily, Windows 7 has a great new networking feature called HomeGroup, enabling you to set up and share any number of files very easily, including access to printers.

It is true to say that Microsoft will find it very difficult to come up with a “perfect” operating system, due to the unbelievable legacy of programs, peripherals and hardware manufacturers reliant on “uncle Microsoft” to function. Windows 7 may not be pain free, but it is a much better product out of the box than Vista ever was.

Adam Toren, Co-Founder of Young Entrepreneur, specializes in improving the profitability of under-performing businesses with a unique and ‘bottom line’ program. Adam, along with his brother, have started, bought and sold several companies over the past years. They currently own and operate a successful publishing company and several online companies.