Many DFY content vendors will tell you that you can use their content right out of the box, but that’s not exactly true. If you are using DFY content to provide your audience with great information, there are a few things you should do before you start.

Here are 4 things to consider before using DFY content:

Thing #1 – Check the facts

One thing you need to always be aware of when it comes to using DFY content is that not all content is made equal… and NOT all DFY vendors are reputable. There are two types of vendors.

The first type are not just marketers, but are writers at heart. These vendors do their own research and write almost all of their DFY content. So, you can expect consistent quality and a uniform ‘voice’ throughout their products.

They tend to take a lot of pride in their work and it’s usually safe to purchase content from these vendors.

At the other end of the spectrum are vendors who are ONLY in the business for the money. They outsource the writing to cheap writers on freelance sites. The content is then cobbled together, given a pretty sales page and sold as the next best thing since sliced bread.

The problem with this type of DFY content is that freelancers are on the clock. The more they write and the more gigs they accept, the more money they make.

This immediately puts a constraint on their time. Guess where they the first place they cut corners is?

If you said research, you are absolutely right. When a cheap freelance writer is tasked to write content, most of the time they just get online and pull facts from different websites and create what some like to call a “Frankenarticle.”

The problem is that you never really know if the facts are accurate. There’s so much misinformation online that fake news has become the norm. And the last thing you want to do as a blogger or other content creator is become a distributor of fake news.

So, for example, if you’re in the health niche and you’re using DFY content, it’s especially important to cross-check all facts and stats you find in your PLR articles/eBooks. You don’t want to be dishing out inaccurate information.

The goal is to be an authority in your niche whether it’s the health niche or something else, and not a disseminator of misinformation.

Always fact check your content. Period.

Thing #2 – Check for plagiarism

Another common practice by low-quality freelancers is to just take content from different sites and mash them together to form their own article. Once again, the writers are either hard-pressed for time or they’re looking for shortcuts.

Run your content through a site like Copyscape.com to see if your DFY content is plagiarized. Do note that since others may have used the same base DFY content as you, several results may show up.

This is not plagiarism – you’ll notice that their content is almost the same as your DFY content because they’ve used the same package to start with.

What you should be looking for are sentences and paragraphs that show up oddly on sites where the rest of the content is totally different.

When you see such results, almost always, the writer has either plagiarized the content or is using a content scraping software to create the content.

Thing #3 – Understand how the duplicate content penalty works

Not being organized with your DFY content can lead to you being assessed a duplicate content penalty on your site. But, there are so many so many misconceptions about this penalty that I wanted to clear some of the up as they apply to using DFY content.

The simple rule is – using DFY content will NOT get you penalized by Google. It doesn’t work that way. If it did, all syndicated news sites, etc. would get penalized for using the same content.

You ONLY get penalized by Google for duplicate content when several of your blog posts contain the exact same content. Google thinks you’re trying to game the system and rank your site higher.

For example, if you take a specific PLR article that you have, come up with 3 catchy titles for the article and post the same article 3 times on your blog, now you have duplicate content.

You’re only changing the title of the article but the rest of the content is the same. Some marketers do this intentionally thinking they’ll get away with it and others accidentally make a mistake because they’re disorganized and don’t have a system for using DFY content to know what they’ve already used and what they haven’t.

This is where being organized when using PLR comes in handy. If you’re like me and you have hard drives filled with the stuff, you need to have a system for organizing it and knowing where and when you’ve used it so that you don’t inadvertently get yourself a duplicate content penalty by posting the same content more than once on your site.

A good way to do this is to keep a separate folder for content that you’ve already used on your sites. Or rename the DFY content and add the date that you used it, so there’s no mistaking that it has already been used. This will prevent you from being hit with the duplicate content penalty.

Thing #4 – Pay attention to the PLR License

Many DFY content buyers have trouble understanding the license terms that come with the packages they purchase, or they think they don’t apply to them. Don’t be that person.

While the terms state that you can sell the content as your own, you can NOT actually sell it as your own PLR. It’s easy to get confused here.

What the terms really mean is that you need to convert the DFY content into a final product, personalize it and sell it as a unique product to end consumers.

You can’t sell it as your own PLR content because that’s the original vendor’s job. Be clear about the license terms when using DFY content so that you don’t step on anyone’s toes.

If in doubt, always seek clarification from the vendor.

Final Thoughts

Using DFY content can save you a lot of time, and if you follow these four tips before you start using any content that you buy, you’ll end up with a much better final product that you’ll be proud to call your own and share with your audience.

*Note: This post includes affiliate links, for which I will receive a small commission should you make a purchase.