Check out my automated niche blog business model (it really works)

[allenjohn]

Originally Posted by chamel

After messing with this for 2 days, I finally got everything to working

I have a couple of questions still though... The first time it pulled the feeds for the post, I pulled in 30 posts for one day! Yikes

Do I control the number of posts it pulls in from the wpomatic plugin? I would rather have 2 per day, looks a little more natural.

second question, the posts it pulled in were right on target, but it did not post the entire article, but only a snippet, and of course the link that says read more here, which takes them to the original page, and off of my site

I would rather have the entire post on my site loaded with affiliate links versus a small snippet with only a few,(sometimes no) links.

Is this controlled by the actual feed that I am using?

Thanks up front for all of your help.

Hi - Quick answers:

1. Limit number of posts in Options in WP O Matic - 1+ per day
2. Yes. Determined by feed. Look to find people who supply full feeds.

All the best, Allen

[kazakhan]

Originally Posted by jbreezy

Is anyone having trouble getting GoCodes to Work with 2.7?

Same here. So i'm switching to joomla which i'm more comfortable with, the same can be done with the ReReplacer and Virtual Newspaper Manager plugins.

[4morereferrals]

Ok its looks nice ...

Does it do it AS WP-O-Matic/YAAB makes the posts or do I need to go into each post or draft and run a process on them individually?

Originally Posted by Steve Porcaro

Steve,

Here is a possible solution that is sold by John Taylor of the Warrior Forum
Easy WP Affiliate

I think this can solve your and alot of others whoa's.

I do not own it, as I have everything working.

[cmac2250]

Hi Keith,
I was going to start this method but i just have a few questions. First, google or adsnese hasn't given you any problems for using only synidcated content? It seems that they could ban you for this. Second, you have not had any legal trouble from the sites you are syndicating? I know you said it is the same as google news but i believe google news may actually pay for their syndicated stories.

Let me know what you think about this

[Dylantk]

I'm still very new I've installed the WP-o-matic and the gocodes. But now I'm confused. Starting A new campaign...How do I do that. Do I google for the feed url and what kind of feed url do I need? How do I impliment gocodes into the feeds? I only have 1 affiliate product right now but I'm trying to udilize adsense. Please help me fix this I really wanna experiment with this type of blogging.

[SheriffBen]

Love it! I have used WP-O-MATIC on 2 sites in the past to share my own content back and forth, but this is a very good insight. Thank you. I will get my next site up ASAP. Hey it gets that sucker up and done, right? I can always go back and put in original content later, but this will be a good procrastination buster.

Thanks Again!

[realworldincome]

For one of my sites, awhile back I tried several times to use the WP-O-Matic plugin, but for whatever reason could never get it work just right. Tried some other options, then finally settled on Autoblogged, which has improved over time.

[Tim Dixon]

Originally Posted by Steve Porcaro

Steve,

Here is a possible solution that is sold by John Taylor of the Warrior Forum
Easy WP Affiliate

I think this can solve your and alot of others whoa's.

I do not own it, as I have everything working.

[quote=vicone;388466]

Originally Posted by 4morereferrals

Ok its looks nice ...

Does it do it AS WP-O-Matic/YAAB makes the posts or do I need to go into each post or draft and run a process on them individually?

Important to differentiate between what WPOM does and what GoCodes (or equivalent) does.

GoCodes is just a url redirect plugin. e.g. you give it an ugly affiliate link and it provides a nice url on your domain which will redirect to the affiliate link.

WPOM - you use the ReWrite tab to specify a word or phrase in the new post it creates and you can both rewrite that word or phrase and/or link that word or phrase to a url. In Keiths model the URL you specify is the one you get from GoCodes.

John's Easy WP Affiliate works outside of the WPOM/GoCodes setup I believe in that you wouldn't use the rewrite function of WPOM, but Easy WP Affiliate would add the links in as the post is being created. At least that is how it looks to me, but I'm willing to be corrected!

I'm not sure if those links would then get included in the RSS feed (which is one of the key techniques used here and in my model) or indeed if Johns plugin and WP-O-Matic play nicely together. That would need testing.

Tim

[Tim Dixon]

Originally Posted by allenjohn

Hi,

Great post and you can see that we have followed your words of wisdom by implementing here:

Analog Camcorders Blog Archive Panasonic PV-L352 Analog Camcorder

But as you can see the hyperlinked 'camcorders' in the post is not hyperlinked in the feed itself:

Analog Camcorders

So, this is my question: How do you keep the links alive in the description part of the feed, as surely this is how the keyword link love gets generated?

Your help is greatly appreciated and you are already my hero.

Thank, Allen

Whilst the links may not be active when you view the feed in your browser (although if you check the XML source code they are actually there) what you will find is that if anyone subscribes to the feed with an RSS reader, then the links are active, also when you submit the feed to an RSS directory (which is where you get the link love from) then the link is usually active in their results as well.

Tim

[4morereferrals]

Tim,

I understood what the tool would do, but I could see how someone else NOT struggling with the WPOM alternative issues that I am might not be clear.

I would need to use 2 different plugins to replace WPOM.

- YAAB
- WP Affiliate

I like Keiths point about keeping GoCodes in the mix because you keep all these same links with your domain URL all over the place. I suspect that if my POSTS on my blog that I create [via whatever method] dont get into MY outgoing RSS feed until I actually PUBLISH them I could be in ok shape getting my affil links out there with the GoCodes beautified URLS.

So I would ...

Tag my relevant content manually with the Google Reader as you illustrated in your post[s] with NOTES [my notes].

- YAAB would pick them up as an incoming subscribed feed. I have set to post them as DRAFTS. I then look at my DRAFTS section of the posts .. go into them with John Taylors WP Affiliate plugin - add links - hit post. Id have WP Affilaite insert Go Code links. I understnad GoCodes tracks clicks on those links? Gotta keep the Go Codes in the mix!!!

[Tim Dixon]

Hi Steve.

Looks like you've got it covered.

It will be interesting to see how it pans out with that setup, do let me know.

Thanks
Tim

[ztrek]

Keith there's also the ALinks plugin for wordpress which will allow you to create links to affiliate products based on keywords. This works great with using WP-omatic. Yes the system you describe will work. I've done it in the past.

[ztrek]

Originally Posted by Mark Brian

Would you mind giving a hint in what I think this is the most important part of this method: "get keyword-based RSS feeds for WP-O-Matic", where can we find them?

The metthod I use to find such feeds is by simply going to google and doing a search
"your keyword" RSS
or use google blog search with your keywords

[bill05]

Keith

This is fantastic stuff!

And a little help for folks looking for keyword feeds...

I was doing the google rss search and came across a nice list of plug-n-play feeds at this site - just add your keyword

(but the system will not let me add the url until I have 15 posts)

bill

[bill05]

So I have added this post to be able add the next post

[bill05]

Which is here (a list of generic rss feed source - just add your keyword)

List of Keyword RSS feeds

and hopefully a help for someone

bills

[Tim Dixon]

Originally Posted by ztrek

The method I use to find such feeds is by simply going to google and doing a search
"your keyword" RSS
or use google blog search with your keywords

If you use Google Reader you can also use the search function from within GR itself which usually pulls up at least a few relevant feeds.

Don't forget you can usually make a feed from lots of sites where there is a search functionality as well.

Take YouTube for instance, if you go there and search on your keywords, you should be able to make a feed out of the results page using the feed buttons in your browser.

Tim

[Tim Dixon]

Originally Posted by bill05

Which is here (a list of generic rss feed source - just add your keyword)

List of Keyword RSS feeds

and hopefully a help for someone

bills

Good find Bill, thanks for sharing.

Tim

[BigSexy]

I don't get the link building part of this method...can you really get to high PR rank just by auto-submitting to feed aggregator sites??

[Keith Kogane]

Hey all. Don't want anyone to think I've forgotten about this thread. If you asked me a question here or sent me a PM recently I WILL get back to you. Maybe not until the weekend, but hopefully before then.

IN the meantime, I have a new successful experiment to share. I know a lot of folks are only finding snippets of content, and are having problems with that conceptually.

Well, it occurred to me that with the popularity of Twitter, that short snippets are not necessarily a problem. People are becoming used to the idea of "micro" content. The challenge here is to match up tiny content with a format that looks sensible.

So use the Prologue theme (Which is meant to be an "internal" Twitter shared by a small team of users).

And then the standard setup of WP-O-Matic, GoCodes, etc.

However, you go through the trouble to create several user accounts in the WordPress install, and then when you set up your campaigns in WPOM, you can select an author per campaign. I've never used that feature before ever, but it works pretty great with this setup.

What I've done in the experiment is set up a "user" for each of my content sources, so they are labeled as the author of their content to my "twitter" clone. (In fact, you can do this with any blog setup, and is a nice way to give even more credit to the source of the content.)

Otherwise, the rest of the method remains the same.

I'm really liking the results, and though I can't say for sure yet, this should work just as well as any other theme long term, it just helps put those snippets into a context people might feel is more solid conceptually.

FOr my more lengthy writeup, I'm also trying out a lot of different plugins to try and recreate the desired functionality of GoCodes and WPOM so that people who have trouble with those particular ones have alternatives they can try.

Oh, also, for the people who are having trouble with GoCodes after upgrading to 2.7, double check that the upgrade didn't overwrite your htaccess file and remove the portion you added to make GoCodes work. I can't say for sure that's it, but that's the first place I'd look.

Anyways, back to the mines for me. I'll be back hopefully before the weekend to catch up. Take care, all!

[Tim Dixon]

Hi Keith.

I've been toying with the 'Twitter type' microblogging idea as well, but not in relation to my autoblogging techniques, so interesting stuff to compare how you're doing it.

As you mention, that idea about using different accounts for each campaign is actually something to consider for the more 'normal' (if there is such a thing) type of autoblogging, it all helps to add authenticity to things.

I don't get the link building part of this method...can you really get to high PR rank just by auto-submitting to feed aggregator sites??

This method is not just well known within the autoblogging world but is used by many people for all sorts of sites.

Not all the RSS directory sites will help towards your PR as some use the nofollow attribute now, but it does work. I wouldn't go as far as to say you will get a 'high' PR though (although anything is possible in theory) and it will take time.

Aside from the PR point of view it helps with indexing and can bring in traffic as well of course.

Tim

[nolachief]

keith,

thanks for this one, too. Great stuff!! and all for FREE!!

bob

[moonlasor]

Hello Keith,

First, thank you for such a dead on article (series).

I have just started to use a similar WP Pluggin to WP- O- Matic.

How many posts do you start off with initially? How many new posts a day do you use, generally? And at what time intervals?

Why do you need to use an affiliate link redirect?

I read your "Your blog domain is getting the benefit of all this backlink love so you will start to grow PR over time too. (This is yet another reason we're using GoCodes. All the backlinks you're generating link back to your own domain, giving YOU the PR benefit." I am not 100% what you mean here.

If you bundle or send out your RSS feeds to various aggregates, wouldn't they automatically come back to you?

"Once the blogs get PR, sell text links
- you can get a sponsor donate plugin to make this automatic."

Please explain this briefly if you can.

Again Keith, I personally thank you for a wonderful and honest article/method.

David

[djleon1]

Here is another plug-in which may work for people having trouble with Gocodes.

It is WordPress › WP-Marketer WordPress Plugins it seems to accomplish what gocodes is set-up to do but is a bit newer and geared towards 2.7

I am not sure if it keeps the links one you send out your posts to different feeds.

[4morereferrals]

Originally Posted by djleon1

Here is another plug-in which may work for people having trouble with Gocodes.

It is WordPress › WP-Marketer WordPress Plugins it seems to accomplish what gocodes is set-up to do but is a bit newer and geared towards 2.7

I am not sure if it keeps the links one you send out your posts to different feeds.

I was looking at this PI [plug in] last night late as well. Looks promising. Looks like it does 2 functions ... affiliate link adding and gocodes?

[ojean]

Hi Keith,
Thank for sharing. You have provided very useful information on automated niche blog business model using WP-O-Matic. I have justed started my own blogging using Blog Solution, a mass blog platform using automated updates and ping. Just wonder have you ever used this software before and how it is as compared to WP-O-Matic?

[kevinw1]

Here's a small gotcha with Gocodes I just discovered - it doesn't work if you have hyphens in the gocode links.

For example,
http://www.example.com/go/test
works, but
http://www.example.com/go/test-two
doesn't, you get a 404 error.

Having solved that, now to work out why WPOM is giving me anything up to 25 duplicates of the same post!

Kevin

[vicone]

Ojean,

I'd suggest doing a little more research on this mass blogging approach. I know of many marketers who tried this - especially with Adsense - and their sites were promptly dropped by the search engines when detected. PPC traffic providers may resist sending traffic and Adsense may pay you peanuts per click.

Consider how the site is to be used and whether useful information is being provided to visitors.

A special difficulty with mass-producing blogs is that, as each blog fails, you're obliged to create a new one to make up for it. This means a never-ending cycle of crash-burn-rebirth. Unless you're a Phoenix, I'd suggest approaching your blog-building activities in a way that has a cumulative benefit and, over time, means that you are building an asset.

Many find the crash-burn-rebirth approach to be tiresome, boring and frustrating, although they may succeed in earning short term profits.

There are many good mentors that will point you in the direction of long-term sustainable profits.

Incidentally, I love the idea of automating as much as possible; my caution is against thin, inadequate content.

Ivan

[Tim Dixon]

Originally Posted by kevinw1

Having solved that, now to work out why WPOM is giving me anything up to 25 duplicates of the same post!

Kevin

Here's a thread from the WPOM issue tracker site discussing duplicate posts.
#148 Problem with Multiple Same Posts - WP-o-Matic - wpomatic

Tim

[Alaister]

Hi Just wondering with this strategy wp-o-matic doesnt actually write a proper post for you does it?

it only automates a very short one line or two line post. I understand you want to replace the keywords with your affiliate links but you are not really providing people any good content so why would they come to your site?

This could be a totally newbie question but yeh if you could clarify on that, i would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks

[kevinw1]

Thanks Tim, I've plugged in that fix and I'll see how it goes. The problem doesn't seem to happen if I do a manual fetch (which would agree with the cause discussed in that thread, of multiple cron jobs).

[4morereferrals]

Originally Posted by Alaister

Hi Just wondering with this strategy wp-o-matic doesnt actually write a proper post for you does it?

it only automates a very short one line or two line post. I understand you want to replace the keywords with your affiliate links but you are not really providing people any good content so why would they come to your site?

This could be a totally newbie question but yeh if you could clarify on that, i would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks

It totally depends on your feed source - if all the rss feed is sending is the link back to the originating blog - then yes - all you get from WPOM is a title and excerpt.

However; I dont use those feeds. I get feeds with full articles, and I select them manually in multiples, via Tim Dixon's Google Reader aggregator method. I also annotate them with my thoughts on how they apply to the niche - and all that gets posted. Semi Auto mode

Keiths is FULL AUTO and for certain sites that's bangin' and will do the deal.

[Alaister]

Originally Posted by 4morereferrals

It totally depends on your feed source - if all the rss feed is sending is the link back to the originating blog - then yes - all you get from WPOM is a title and excerpt.

However; I dont use those feeds. I get feeds with full articles, and I select them manually in multiples, via Tim Dixon's Google Reader aggregator method. I also annotate them with my thoughts on how they apply to the niche - and all that gets posted. Semi Auto mode

Keiths is FULL AUTO and for certain sites that's bangin' and will do the deal.

ok great. thanks a lot for clarifying things.

ill check out the google reader method

[Dave Earley]

Originally Posted by Keith Kogane

I only tried a couple of others before I found WP-O-Matic. Actually when I came across it, it didn't work for me, but I happened to find it just before one of the version upgrades that switched it to use WordPress's built-in Cron rather than a server-based Cron.

The plugin that I downloaded told me to add a piece of coding to my crontab, which I found in my cpanel. Are you saying there's another one?

Also, what kind of content is this automation producing? Are these going to be frankensteinn articles of some sort? Do you have a sample post we could view?

Great work by the way, Keith.

Dave

[John W.G.]

after I activate wp-o-matic I see a link in the upper right corner of my screen that says, "click here to setup and configure wp-o-matic" but when I click it I get taken to a page that says, "Please switch to Firefox / Safari"

I'm using firefox.

Anyone else having this problem?

John

[Steve Porcaro]

Hi I still see some question on the Go-codes and WPOM. I made a video earlier in this thread.

I put it in my signature for easier reference.

[Tim Dixon]

Originally Posted by John Gottshall

after I activate wp-o-matic I see a link in the upper right corner of my screen that says, "click here to setup and configure wp-o-matic" but when I click it I get taken to a page that says, "Please switch to Firefox / Safari"

I'm using firefox.

Anyone else having this problem?

John

Hi John.

I have had that before and found I had to refresh my browser cache I think to get past it.

Tim

[Tim Dixon]

Originally Posted by Dave Earley

The plugin that I downloaded told me to add a piece of coding to my crontab, which I found in my cpanel. Are you saying there's another one?

Also, what kind of content is this automation producing? Are these going to be frankensteinn articles of some sort? Do you have a sample post we could view?

Great work by the way, Keith.

Dave

It will work without using crontab as it then uses the Wordpress built-in cron function.

As for the content that gets posted to your blog, that depends entirely on the content model you use to produce those RSS feeds.

At the end of the day WPOM will only post what it finds in the RSS feed (unless you use the regex word replacement to change some of the content).

Tim

[John W.G.]

Originally Posted by Tim Dixon

Hi John.

I have had that before and found I had to refresh my browser cache I think to get past it.

Tim

Thank you Tim - solved thanks to you.

Have a wonderful day.

[Alaister]

I was wondering...if you were to automate your blog with the rss feeds wouldn't you be up for duplicate content?

Also as you know a lot of RSS feeds are only an extract perhaps 1 or 2 lines or the actual article. How are you generating traffic if your articles are so short and cannot be relaly littered with keywords?

Am I missing something here??

Thanks,
Alaister

[ojean]

Originally Posted by vicone

Ojean,

I'd suggest doing a little more research on this mass blogging approach. I know of many marketers who tried this - especially with Adsense - and their sites were promptly dropped by the search engines when detected. PPC traffic providers may resist sending traffic and Adsense may pay you peanuts per click.

Consider how the site is to be used and whether useful information is being provided to visitors.

A special difficulty with mass-producing blogs is that, as each blog fails, you're obliged to create a new one to make up for it. This means a never-ending cycle of crash-burn-rebirth. Unless you're a Phoenix, I'd suggest approaching your blog-building activities in a way that has a cumulative benefit and, over time, means that you are building an asset.

Many find the crash-burn-rebirth approach to be tiresome, boring and frustrating, although they may succeed in earning short term profits.

There are many good mentors that will point you in the direction of long-term sustainable profits.

Incidentally, I love the idea of automating as much as possible; my caution is against thin, inadequate content.

Ivan

Thanks for your kind advice, Ivan. Although blog solution is a mass blogging software, I only release one blog per week and moderate the automated updates and ping. Hope that this won't cause any problems then...

[Steve Porcaro]

I would say that the following failures to the mass blogging approach may have the possible flaws

1. They are just posting stuff up with no regard for the content or user, they just want to make money and serve self.
2. They are using cheap hosting where thousands of other want to be marketers have their site all on one IP and it has already been shut down because of the IP and not the content.
3. Not really trying to create an authority site in the niche you are seeking

You cannot just say auto blogging fails when it is succesful for many and is espoused outside of these forums, gurus and other stuff we are dealt.

There are way to many variables to determine whether something is success or failure...

Spend some money and time and thinking power you will get ahead this is not a push button business people

Originally Posted by ojean

Thanks for your kind advice, Ivan. Although blog solution is a mass blogging software, I only release one blog per week and moderate the automated updates and ping. Hope that this won't cause any problems then...

[Dave Earley]

Originally Posted by Tim Dixon

It will work without using crontab as it then uses the Wordpress built-in cron function.

As for the content that gets posted to your blog, that depends entirely on the content model you use to produce those RSS feeds.

At the end of the day WPOM will only post what it finds in the RSS feed (unless you use the regex word replacement to change some of the content).

Tim

Thanks, Tim.

Would using the regex word replacement be a good idea? Would it make the content more unique?

Originally Posted by Steve Porcaro

Hi I still see some question on the Go-codes and WPOM. I made a video earlier in this thread.

I put it in my signature for easier reference.

Great tutorial Steve! Easy to follow and understand.

Dave

[Dave Earley]

I forgot one thing:

Lets say that I use several different keywords that make up several different categories with WPOM. Will the posts be categorized automatically, or will I need to take care of that manually?

Dave

[Chris Lagarde]

Here's an example of using GoCodes and what to watch out for. Let's say my website is promoting acne solutions clickbank products.

With WPOM you could hyperlink the word "acne" as rss feed stories are pulled in. The hyperlink will be with your affiliate clickbank id.
for example:
http://bettylife.nichegroupllc.hop.clickbank.net/

You don't want this because people will avoid clicking on the hyperlink. Instead you have WPOM hyperlink a friendly GoCode redirect URL.

Note: the landing page ends up being the same (see above) BUT by first making your affiliate link into a GoCode, the hyperlink that shows when readers hover their mouse will look like:

http://YOURBLOGNAME123.com/go/acne

A much better looking hyperlink URL!

In the above GoCode example the word "acne" is what GoCode refers to as the "redirection key". When you are in the GoCode setup, you will the blank area where you are requested to fill in the redirection key.

GoCode Redirection Key Tips:
NO spaces, NO hyphens, NO underscores

Example of what DOES NOT work:
http://YOURBLOGNAME123.com/go/acne-solutions
http://YOURBLOGNAME123.COM/go/acne_solutions
http://YOURBLOGNAME123.com/go/acne solutions

Example of WHAT DOES WORK:
http://YOURBLOGNAME123.com/go/acne
http://YOURBLOGNAME123.com/go/acnesolutions

Lastly, while doing research on GoCodes I found out you can change the /go/ in your GoCodes to other words like /recommends/

See below:
------------------------------------------
Additional tips, you can change the go word into something you like, example instead of pointing to “mydomain/go/key” you can make it to “mydomain/recommend/key”, simply by tune the .htaccess file a little bit.


Check this part from your .htaccess file.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^go/([A-Za-z0-9]+)/?$ /index.php?gocode=$1 [L,R]`

Change the ^go to ^recommend, save and reupload your .htaccess. Voila, it’s done

If you find any problem whatsoever with the plugin, you can contact Matt the gocodes creator. As he put concern on his free product. I face some problem two days ago, and it’s fixed already by now.

[neoo28]

Hi, this model is very interesting. I just have a question about legality . Is it legal to put your own affiliate link in to content which is not yours. It said that you can use RSS feed on your blog without changing it .
I want to make blog like this but scared of legal issues .

[Tim Dixon]

Originally Posted by Dave Earley

I forgot one thing:

Lets say that I use several different keywords that make up several different categories with WPOM. Will the posts be categorized automatically, or will I need to take care of that manually?

Dave

Dave, you choose what categories the posts for each campaign go into when you set up that campaign.

Also, regarding the Regex function, I personally don't use it as I the only thing I ever do is change link a particular word or phrase in the content that I add to the feed item through Google Reader.

However, theoretically you could of course use this to change content to make it more unique, but I could see it being a real pain to set up and maintain.

Tim

[4morereferrals]

Originally Posted by STOREHEALTHBEAUTY

Hi, this model is very interesting. I just have a question about legality . Is it legal to put your own affiliate link in to content which is not yours. It said that you can use RSS feed on your blog without changing it .
I want to make blog like this but scared of legal issues .

I think you need to see tim Dixon's posts #1 and #2 for a solution to that. Add your own anecdotes and put links in there, if ya skeered. :-)

[chamilj]

Originally Posted by Steve Porcaro

Hi I still see some question on the Go-codes and WPOM. I made a video earlier in this thread.

I put it in my signature for easier reference.

Thanks Steve, Your video really useful.
Chamil

[chamilj]

I am getting same post two / three times when WP -O -Matic fetches RSS feed. How I avoid it please help.
Chamil.