PLR Wordpress Websites … Turn Key or Not?

PLR Websites are a tool used by internet marketers as a way to get your site online quickly, complete with content.  If you’ve ever worked with them in the past and have an interest in learning the underlying technologies that make a website work, the instructions and a little time are more than adequate. 

Everyone working on the internet must be aware of the rising popularity of Wordpress.   If you aren’t, feel free to contact me to learn more about how you can leverage this amazing software for your websites, beyond the traditional blog. 

Under the Covers

 Wordpress Websites require knowledge of more than simple HTML to set up correctly.  Wordpress is a Content Management System (CMS) that uses databases for content storage and PHP scripts to access that content for presentation on a website.  Learning how things all work together can be a rewarding journey if you like knowing how things work.  If you have limited experience with technology and become impatient when things don’t go as expected, your project can be less than fun.

 The whole idea of PLR is that you can purchase content, slightly modify it, and put it up as your own.  This permits the ability to begin creating a web presence with a minimum of effort and can also save on expense of hiring someone who can adequately translate your vision into a functional website for a product or service launch.  If your goal is to monetize a site quickly and you lack the base technical skills you need to read into the instructions,  you are likely to be confounded by a PLR Wordpress Website purchase.

 PLR products will give you all of the information that you need about installation, usage and reselling privileges.  There are some generalized guidelines but PLR products do have differences so reading the license for your new software is advisable.

 Wordpress Database and Security Matters

A simple Wordpress installation creates 11 tables, at this time.  Wordpress requires that certain things are set up in order for the software to operate correctly.  These specialized data are stored in various tables within the site database.  The list of items includes a site URL and blog URL, if it is different.

 While reviewing the installation script for a recent project, I saw that the PLR Product had altered the standard Wordpress Installation script, apparently in an effort to bypass the need to make these changes in the database.  All things being equal, uploading the database export to the destination database on my client’s servers was easy.  As I analyzed the data that was stored in the tables, however, I realized that the instructions lacked very important information for truly owning the site and its data.

 Another observation that I made about the setup script was that it didn’t follow secure Wordpress Website installation practices that have been recommended for more than two years.  As we are all painfully aware, website security is critical … especially if it is a source of income for you.

 A new user of Wordpress, who may have been misled into believing it is a one-click install would not have known what to look for, let alone how to change it. 

Wordpress Setup

 No one that I know puts up  a website, Wordpress or otherwise, just for the sake of having a website alone.  At least I hope not!    The whole idea of having a website is that you want traffic to your site so you can share some specialized knowledge, build authority in a niche or campaign about products and services that you might be offering.  Once again, knowing what settings affect the visibility of your new Wordpress website are the key.

 The PLR software package that needed to be installed did not have the privacy settings nor ping list optimized for broad access to the new site.  Indeed, the website was up as predicted but nothing in the installation instructions addressed these critical and necessary changes so it could be found through organic searches and paid advertising campaigns. 

 The Virtually Marj Service team uses standardized procedure for optimizing settings, as well as a standard list of plugins for analyzing and improving traffic to the site.  This is our “secret sauce” so I won’t be laying all of that out for you here but if you’d like to know more about that, you can contact me. 

To PLR or Not to PLR, that is the question

 PLR Products are a great way to jumpstart your business and website and it is wonderful that people take the time to create them.  As with all business decisions, choosing the “right tool for the job” is an important step along the way.  As for PLR Wordpress Websites, they are not recommended for people who do not have the underlying skills to read into the instructions or who don’t have staff to make them work properly as a business building tool