How to Source Content the Right Way AND get Affiliate Commissions

byMozMary

16.8K followers

Updated 6 years ago

Sourcing and writing content is a big issue for many people and Kyle has written a brilliant article on this recently showing in a nutshell that writing is about communication, and everyone can communicate. I love the example he gave of people explaining to him in a 500 word email that they can't write, when really they'd just communicated half a blog post right there without even trying.

But I think people are getting stuck in two places: Sourcing, as well as Writing

1. Writing was dealt with by Kyle, people don't realize writing is just communicating, communicating their ideas, opinions, thoughts and we can all do that.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/kyle/blog/how-to-write-conte...

2. But sourcing content is what many bloggers miss:

• having an INFORMED opinion
• doing research in your niche
• actual knowledge from original sources
• your experience

All that sets us up to actually be helpful, to be original, to have our own ideas and not just be clones copying and passing on misinformation or 'curating' content. And that sets us up to rank

My journey from grade C to grade A to landing page 1 of Google inside two hours with a $123.50 commission

The big mistake I made at school was I had an opinion that was not informed by research in any of my essays, because no one told me I had to do research or even what that was!! I could talk and talk but sourcing content or content resources, no one mentioned that.

I just couldn't figure out why my essays were flat line grade C 'no matter what I did':

• - afterall I had no spelling or grammar mistakes
• - I made the word count perfectly
• - and I spoke about the title subject not something off track

But that was never enough - and the teacher NEVER EVER TOLD ME what was missing - in a whole two years of writing schools essays watching my 'perfect creation' always coming back with a predictable C, one little nudge in the right direction and I'd have fixed it real easy, just like most people on the internet these days from what I see. So I'm going to give the nudge! Because hidden inside that average grade C essayist was someone who suddenly started doing straight A's in all her essays through Cambridge University later on, even winning the annual Philosophy Essay Prize across the whole university, wtf, I was the exact same person, no fancy courses, just one little tweak to go from zero to hero?!

Informed = Information, the road to Mastery

I finally figured it out at uni, again no one told me but I was fed up with grade C and knew I had to be missing something. I noticed that when I studied science all I had to do was give them back what they taught me all year in the end of year exams and I got the marks. But when I studied in the humanities where there were modules on history and philosophy and theology all of a sudden giving them back what they taught me was not enough, these people wanted me to know what was going on, understand it, have an opinion instead of just rattling off the top of my head, and when I quoted something it could never be hearsay, source of information was important:

• there were reading lists given for these essays
• there were references pointing to books and journals

I was supposed to actually know what was going on and understand the main issues and have an original opinion - not hand up a summary like looked identical to 30 other students in the class - suddenly my unformed half baked lazy opinions were exposed for what they were, now I was reading a book showing 10 expert's opinons and where they were going wrong or right or whatever - hold on - NOW I was thinking, my opinions were changing, being upgraded, my ideas were getting better...tweak tweak...

OMG, a 2000 word essay suddenly seemed like too few words - I was supposed to read some of the top books in that subject and journal articles - there could be 10 or more top level sources I had to read, original sources - by the time I did that I wanted to write 200,000 words not 2k.

But NO the secret is when you understand something THEN you can say it concisely - when you can write ONLY 2000 words having read everything you can and present a coherent piece that covers the main arguments AND give your original twist and ideas and opinions at that point you are into mastery. All the fluff and waffle is cut out, the long rambling half baked opinion is gone.

But this was all the stuff I was ignoring when I was a grade C as I spoke forever on what I personally thought about a subject, or what I was told about it, or what someone else said about it - basically reguritating the opinions and work of others some of whom put no thought or work into it either - and writing them in my own words was getting me a grade C!!

What's an 'average' grade C blogger: Content Curation?

Hello out there - does this sound familiar - because this is what I see happening with a lot of bloggers and a large portion of the internet, there are even whole courses and plugins on 'content curation', how to copy, rewrite, swipe, massage the content of others without having to create anything original, thieving by whatever name you like to call it, resulting in a ton of blogs with half accurate information all looking identical. Before you post a blog to WA notice it checks for 'duplicate content' and says no content curation allowed! You'll find Kyle actually has his eye on google rank with that. But not everyone is on the same page:

• I took a course at Udemy this week on 'Easy Content Curation' / aka content theft and asked for my money back and told them I was disgusted at being taught how to steal content under the guise of a legitimate course.
• I got a job advertisement in my email from the 'Revealed Films' people in the health niche looking for applicants to 'write' for their list - sounds idyllic to get paid to research my own niche, eh, except - they were looking to hire someone to trawl the net looking for content to post to their lists twice a week. They want me to go to your site to your content and swipe it for their list, wtf, when they sell pricey digital packages of information that is highly copyrighted threatening to fine you if you blog it - eg on GMOs, they say they want to change the world but you have to pay them to get the info - in my 'application' I told them I'd help them publish their own content and that they should aim higher.
• The top sites in the health niche are now bloated sites built by teams doing this sort of 'content curation' thing but when I read their articles on 'how to deal with candida' I get a glossy article by someone who currently may be pulling in big traffic but it is only HALF the information someone would need to deal with candida and solve their issue - how do I know, because I know the original source of the content and I can help my niche better than him and I can review that trash and turn it right around on his original content theft :D - if a visitor went to the original source where that team stole the information from, they'd get the full details they know for free, so who are they kidding! Clearly I can review that site and not be depressed at the theft ;)

All these average sites could be a grade A if :

• a. knew the work they should be putting in
• b. and didn't make excuses not to do it

- But they plod around in the Cs. Some of them just want numbers at any cost but google eventually ups its algorithms to catch this low grade content.

Quality Original Content: The Difference Between School/Uni Essays & Blogging

Well there are some similarities and some differences: in case you think this is only school and university standards think again!

Similarities between essays and blogging:

• All those new google algorithms are aiming to get people to write quality original content.
• It's Kyle's mantra in here, 'quality original content', I've heard him say he expects people to be immersed in their niche.
• I blogged about landing an article page 1 inside two hours with a new site and making a $123.50 commission, outranking the owners of the affiliate program, do you think that is a coincidence, no. I don't copy and I don't curate and I don't take shortcuts with my niche, I do know my niche. Same with another post I did, google had it outranking all the owners, speakers and 'experts' in the field because they are not doing proper content or SEO, in fact they are the people who told me about 'content curation'!

So it's the exact same principle as with the essays, you have to research more than just your keyword, you have to research information from good sources:

• - I know my niche
• - I know the original sources of information in my niche
• - I take courses and up my skills all the time
• - I read all the free stuff, attend free events, newsletters, books, I'm on the email lists
• - I know who is who and what is what
• - And experienced from using and applying stuff in my niche
• -THEN I'm opinionated

But it's informed opinion and experience.

What about beginners:

It's not often we hear Jay/Magistudios swear, lol, but on this subject he did say htf do you think he started with his authority site?

We all start off in the same place. Like with my essays where I had to read 10 or 20 top level sources [never just the opinion or blog or essay of someone else as a standalone source] Your first article may take more work but it can be top quality, it can rank and get you traffic and commissions, and you can build on that by adding other quality posts to your website all gaining traffic.

THAT will be worth it for you and the reader, solid foundation and model, not fast food trash content that you wouldn't bother reading yourself and that helps no one.

Differences between essays and blogging:

• This is where communication comes in, you can get a lot more blog posts out of a subject as you communicate it in a way to help your audience in your blog than to an academic.
• You wouldn't necessarily presume to teach your teacher, but you may well be teaching and helping your audience.
• You get to use keywords and think in terms of bite sized 'what one thing do I want them to get out of this post', also thinking in terms of your CTA what action is it driving them towards?
• Presentation is better with blogs, sea of text is fine at school and uni and academia but not online where people can be skim readers and have a short attention span.
• In some ways there is a little retraining for anyone coming from the academic world not to over think or over do one post, as I am tempted to do with this one which really could be sectioned off into many useful posts!

Conclusion and Action Steps Today

1. Communicate your informed opinion, be helpful with your knowledge and/or experience in life, if you don't know your niche you can find out with a little work, research and immersion in it, but you can't pretend to be an expert or else expect karma or a new google algorithm to bite you on the ass if you think you can just copy someone else's hard work for your site, be inspired but be respectful.
2. And remember, you are learning about and sharing an area you love with others and making money in the process, it's all fun!
3. The above image on the Toxic Home Transformation is an example of an upcoming event with content resources and high affiliate commissions, promotion open now and event streaming free from June 25th. There are two similar events running in July covering Candida and Alzheimer's & Dementia, where there will be:

• Free gifts
• A speaker schedule
• Affiliate commissions

Free Gifts: Those free gifts include videos and transcripts and ebooks on a large variety of subjects within the health niche, if you were to outsource content you'd pay $100 for someone to gather this for you

• - however I'm not saying copy them
• - and I'm not even saying swallow everything they say
• - I'm saying feed them into your research, keeping up to date with what's going on in whatever aspect of the health niche you may be in /if you are in that niche, but these events and gifts and freebies are in every niche if you look around/
• - but also trace back original sources of the information, that speaker on gluten who is he, ah, not original source and misquotes original scientific research but he says some good stuff; ah that speaker on the ketogenic diet, he has been totally contradicted by that other speaker and it's only him and his friends on this summit.
• There's a bit of work understanding and learning ANY niche, but your explorations and joureny are also part of your story, you can be clear, no one needs perfection just honesty.

- If you think they are saying something bad then people need to hear your opinion on that.

- If they are saying something good then you can help spread that news and make money in the process.

- And if you are learning then show people what you've learned and what you see along the way, that could really help someone.

Speaker Schedule: The speakers are usually not the original source of the content, they usually have a bias, a preferred way of doing things that you may or may not agree with and all of that is bloggers gold. If you are in the health niche then test yourself - can you take one look at the speaker panel and know where they are coming from with their information, if not then you've work to do if you really want to dominate your niche. In my case I'll also look at who their internet marketing influence was, who their friends are because that is the reason the same speakers keep turning up at certain events - do you know people in your niche with different opinions, there's something to look for instead of getting caught up in the latest fad trend.

• Don't forget history, look back at the key players in your niche over time and establish the trends and fashions, and changes and directions.
  

Commissions: Start at just under $30 per sale for these. This particular program is Health Talks Online where you can go sign up, just be aware nearly everything they offer is to get you on their email list and cookied into them - when you drive people to them they get them on their lists too eg those free gifts. These people allow you buy the events on your own link which means half price - 30 hours of lectures with transcripts is quite a resource too, though not a standalone

• look for original sources like Dr. Christopher of The School of Natural Healing, free resources and affiliate program there too.

But before you ever buy anything on your own link make sure you are cookied into yourself by flushing your cache first and re-signing up. Also, the material streams for free for a week.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/how-to-flush-dns-in...

I'll put together some content resources from what I know in the health niche at another point. I am not recommending Health Talks Online or HealthMeans or any of these summits as standalone sources of information though they may present themselves as such, on the contrary I wish they'd be a bit more honest at times as to where they source their content and some of the older naturopaths are actually the original sources of the solutions proposed though these guys will emphasize the science ;)

Mary

ps I should mention that flipping the switch to reading original sources also earned me a £50k scholarship way back in the day, to pay for a PhD. Worth more now. So you never know where a bit of real work could land you.