Turn Google Reader into a semi-automated blogging machine! - Part 1

[Tim Dixon]

After seeing some of the great threads other Warriors have started recently detailing some of their methods and giving them away for free I decided it's about time I offered up some of my own.

This one involves setting up your Google Reader as a semi-automated blogging machine, something I've been fascinated by for a while now (it works very nicely too!)

I don't claim to be a Google Reader expert or anything, this is just the system I use to set it up so that I can run my niche blogs on semi-automatic pilot.

You can use this with Keith Kogane's automated system to replace the niche blog RSS feeds that you have no control over once they're in place.

So to start off with, you need to log into your Google account (or create one if you don't have one), click on the 'My Account' link and then click on Google Reader.

If you don't know what this is, it's basically just an RSS feed reader, but it can be so much more, as you will see.

It's a good idea at this point to have a niche you want to target in mind and several subject groups within that niche that you can group posts by. So if you think of the main niche as the actual Wordpress blog title and the subject groups as the categories on that blog.

For demonstration purposes here I will have my niche as Domaining and my subject groups (I'll call them categories from now on) as Domain Auctions, Domaining News and Domain Parking.

Ok, so before we start configuring things so that we can turn Google Reader into our blogging machine, let's just add a few RSS feeds in to work with.

There are of course many ways to find RSS feeds, but one I've found works pretty well is to use the search function from right within GR.

So click on 'Add a subscription' and type in your keyword or phrase to the search box (in my case I typed in 'Domaining').

Google Reader will then give you a list of RSS feeds that match your search in some way together with some useful statisitics:

• Number of subscribers - this is the number of Google Reader users who have subscribed to the feed (note: it has been shown by various people this is not necessarily accurate).
• Posts per week - very useful for determining how active a feed is.

Now for this to work in the way we want, you will need to try and select RSS feeds that only deal with the niche topic we're interested in. What I mean by that is that it's not much use selecting a generic feed from a news site that happens to contain just one item about what you searched for. You need ones that are mainly to do with the niche you are targeting.

A little tip, whilst checking out each feed to see what the items actually are, you can just use the back button to return to the search results each time (rather than having to start the search all over again).

Use the 'Subscribe' button to add an RSS feed to your Reader, once you have a few added we will move on to the next step.

Now, over on the left hand side under 'Subscriptions' you will see listed all those subscriptions you've added. At the bottom of this panel there is a link labeled 'Manage Subscriptions' click on that now.

This will take you to a Settings screen with the Subscriptions tab selected and all your subscriptions listed. At the right hand end of each row is a button called 'Add to a folder', click on that for one of your feeds, then select 'New folder'.

Now what I like to do to keep things organised is to create a folder for each niche I'm working with and then add all the feeds for that niche to it. So in my example I would create a new folder 'Domaining' at this point. Then I would add each of the feeds I just subscribed to, to this new folder.

Once you have added all the feeds to the new folder, click on the link 'Back to Google Reader' and now you will see in the 'Subscriptions' panel that all our feeds are under the new folder we just created. You can collapse/expand this folder by clicking on the little '+' sign by it.

Now, click on the actual folder name and an aggregated list of all your feed items will appear on the right. I prefer to view this as a list showing just the headings for now, so if it's showing the whole feed item, just click on the link 'Show - List' at the top. You can show them all as expanded just by clicking on 'Expanded' instead.

Start looking through the items in your list (you can expand each one by clicking on the title), when you find one you want to use, do the following:

At the bottom of each item you will see a menu bar at the end of which is the 'Edit Tags' option.

This will just be displaying the folder name the feed is in at the moment, but if you click on the words 'Edit Tags' a little box will pop up where you can add some more.

Now 'Folders' and 'Tags' may appear to be the same thing, but they actually perform different functions. A folder, as we have seen, is used to organise your different feeds in your Google Reader to make them easier to work with. Tags are used to identify individual items that you want to group with a specific theme.

So, going back to my Domaining example, I may read through this item and decide it's a great one to add to my 'Domain Auction' category on my blog, so I'll type in 'Domain Auction' after the word 'Domaining' in my edit tags box, separated by a comma. Note, you will only need to type the full tag name in once, as it will pick it up automatically after that.

Also note that it's important you only tag each item with one tag (in addition to the main folder tag).

****************************

At this point it's worth bringing up another powerful feature of Google Reader, the 'Share with note' menu option you will find mid way along the bottom bar. You can use this to add your own note to your item which will appear in the feed (and therefore in your blog post) just before the actual item. Hopefully you can see the power of that little feature (unique content anyone?), but for now just be aware that for it to work in our little system, you need to click on that rather than the 'Edit Tags' link, type in your note in the pop up screen and add the new tag from there instead.

****************************

Now go through and find a few items you would like to post on your niche blog under the different categories you have. Add tags and notes as you need to.

OK, now we will go to create the feed that we can plug into our niche blog.

Click on the 'Manage subscriptions' link again and then on the Settings page that shows up, click on the 'Folders and Tags' tab. You should now see the folder you created and the tags you have used listed. In the middle of the row you will see an RSS type symbol which will be greyed out and if you hover over it with your mouse it will say 'Click to make this tag public'. Just click once on it to turn this function on and some options will appear along the row at the right hand end.

The first of those functions is 'View public page' , click on that link. You will now see the items and notes that you tagged with that particular tag all on one page. Near the top on the right will be a link with an RSS symbol and the words 'Atom Feed'. If you click on that link you will get the raw RSS feed displayed. If you copy the url for this feed, that is what you want to use as the RSS feed url for that particular category in your niche blog.

That's pretty much it for this basic introduction to niche blogging using Google Reader, but hopefully you can see how once you get it all set up, all you will need to do is to log into your Reader each day (or whenever you want) and review some new items for each niche you're working with. Add a few comments where you can and tag them with the relevant tag and you're done!

I find it's a great way to build up niche blogs on semi-automatic pilot, whilst contributing and adding my own thoughts to make them a little bit unique and of added value.

For me, I find that works better (and makes me happier) than just loading up a blog with whatever comes out of the RSS feed you plugged into it.

There are a load more things you can do with Google Reader to make this method even more effective and perhaps I'll add a 'Part 2' as another thread with that info if there's enough interest.

Anyway, hope you found this useful.

Tim

[ExRat]

Hi Tim,

Interest in part two expressed here Thanks for part one.

[Tim Dixon]

I'm looking at writing Part 2 now but it's a bit more 'techinical' I guess you could say.

Still, I'll try and make it as step by step as possible.

Tim

[ExRat]

Hi Tim,

Thanks.

it's a bit more 'techinical' I guess you could say

Not a problem here

[vicone]

Tim, I appreciate the trouble you've gone to in explaining this setup to us. I've been following Keith's system and this is a useful supplement.

Thanks.

Ivan

[Evita]

Wow. Nice!
This is like Christmas...

Thank you so much for sharing, and you have a wonderful knack for explaining so that it is easy to grasp the different steps...

Best,
Evita

[Tim Dixon]

Originally Posted by Evita

Wow. Nice!
This is like Christmas...

Thank you so much for sharing, and you have a wonderful knack for explaining so that it is easy to grasp the different steps...

Best,
Evita

You are most welcome.

My techniques for explaining things were honed working for many years in the support departments of a several well know IT firms.

Could be quite stressful at times but rewarding nonetheless.

Tim

[melanied]

Technical's not a problem for me - bring on the techie talk!

[prestige00]

The 2nd part to this is a must have now

[Ouroboros]

Your very owner feed "masher" right under your own nose! The missing link (for me) to Keith's system.

Brilliant...Brilliant!

Thanks Tim

Steve

[Tim Dixon]

Originally Posted by Ouroboros

Your very owner feed "masher" right under your own nose! The missing link (for me) to Keith's system.

Brilliant...Brilliant!

Thanks Tim

Steve

Exactly.

It's actually quite astounding what you can do with this.

I'm working on part 2 and will start another thread with that today hopefully.

I just love RSS feeds and what you can do with them.

Tim

[tommygadget]

Another thumbs up for part two. Technical is OK over here.

TomG.

[Keith Kogane]

Nice one, Tim!

I've messed around with RSSMagician and a couple of others to try and do something similar.

What I eventually settled on was creating a Wordpress installation that's not public, but uses WP-O-Matic to compile a lot of rss sources into this "feeder" blog's RSS feeds and aggregating for me. I basically create one category per niche, and have WP-O-Matic funnel a lot of feeds for one niche into one category.

I'm also using a few different randomized content methods to "uniquify" and pad out the content. I then use that "feeder blog" category feed to attach to public-facing niche blog to provide its content via my posted method.

In addition to giving me more control of the feed source, my goal is to create an ongoing source of income when I flip a blog. My thinking is, I can sell the new owner on a subscription to MY niche specific feed (which I still retain control of).

Okay, that's enough sharing for today. I'm still trying to finish the writeup for the FIRST method I posted.

But anyways, I'll have to look more into your method as well. I think this is a kickass method that uses a popular free tool that anyone can replicate. That's my favorite kind! I hope you don't mind if I include mention of it in my upcoming report (credit given, of course).

Kudos to you for discovering it, and I'm grateful that you decided to share it here. I'm also humbled that you mentioned my own thread as a reference.

Thanks again for the helpful post, my friend!

[Tim Dixon]

Hey Keith, thanks for stopping by and posting.

I do something similar to your use of a private Wordpress blog, but use it for a different purpose. Might get to that in part 2 or I may even need to add a part 3, who knows?

I like that angle on flipping blogs and retaining control of the feed for it which can then bring in a nice little recurring income.

Fine with me if you want to include a mention of the thread in your report, I'll try and make sure any subsequent/previous parts of the method are linked in each thread so that people can get to all the information easily.

Tim

[laurieslegends]

Hi Tim,

Interest in part two expressed here Thanks for part one.
You can count me in for part 2 and 3. This is an answer to a prayer for me tonight. I was already to go buy you a beer, have way through reading and doing your advice. Problem is I only have about 3 bucks in my paypal balance right now.

Anyhow, I am so appreciative of you taking the time to explain this. I had looked at google reader, but didn't know all the steps to get it together like you just explained.

I do know what to do with the feed url though. LOL

Laurie

[Tim Dixon]

Laurie.

Glad it helped.

Any questions of course from anyone, please do ask away ! - or did I explain it so well that there aren't any (I can't believe that!)

Tim

[laurieslegends]

I was too tired to go on last night, didn't find your thread until about 2 am, and I couldn't go to sleep until following all your steps.

But I got to putting it into the next step, importing it to wordpress, and I ran into some problems so I am fresh attacking that this morning. I am looking forward to part two, but I am researching google this morning for the how to on that.

Laurie

[Tim Dixon]

Originally Posted by laurieslegends

I was too tired to go on last night, didn't find your thread until about 2 am, and I couldn't go to sleep until following all your steps.

But I got to putting it into the next step, importing it to wordpress, and I ran into some problems so I am fresh attacking that this morning. I am looking forward to part two, but I am researching google this morning for the how to on that.

Laurie

Hi Laurie.

I deliberately haven't really gone into how I use this with Wordpress yet as that's covered in Keith's thread, although we all have slightly different ways of doing things and mine is different to the way Keith lays it out in some respects, although I use the same WP-O_Matic plugin.

If you have a problem, please share it here and I'm sure either me or another reader will be able to help.

Tim

[laurieslegends]

Well, I followed your advice, and your right there are more than one way to go about it. I haven't looked at Keith's thread yet. I will have to check that out.

But this morning, I added a few of my pages from a directory I just built, to my google reader.

I did like you said and tagged them. When I went to get the links, mine had an extra option, get a blogroll.

I was able to get a blog roll of the link I had added to put on my site, but I didn't have that option for any of the others I had picked?

I was just wondering why the blogroll option isn't there for the others.

Laurie

I will have to go and see Keiths Thread now.

Laurie

[Tim Dixon]

I was just wondering why the blogroll option isn't there for the others.

I think you only get this option if you share a folder.

In this technique we are just sharing tags, not folders.

Either way, the blogroll option is not what I use as it's not much use to us in this setup.

Tim

[AbbyP]

Tim,

Count me amongst those waiting on pins and needles for part 2. And thanks very much for pt. 1. This is something I would have never figured out on my own, yet something that's pretty easy to do.

Abby

[googleplex]

Great Article,

Can't wait to read some more.

[summer07]

Another YES vote for Part 2!

I've just started working with RSS feeds and Google Reader, so this is perfect timing. I'm going to try this out right now on a WP site I've had up for a couple of months, but have been too busy to fill with decent content.

I love these detailed "how-to" posts...Thanks!

Audre

[Tim Dixon]

Part 2 will be finished soon as it seems quite a few people would like to see it.

Busy with some other stuff to do with aggregated RSS feeds etc. just now, but will get to it shortly.

Tim

[Tim Dixon]

Sorry to all those waiting for me to get part 2 done.

Busy with some other important business at the moment but I will post here when it's ready. I will not say when as I just don't know at the moment!

Tim

[manzilla911]

Love the tip.

[Kiwigal]

Thanks for the excellent tips, we will all be waiting in eager anticipation for part 2.

[Melody]

Part 2, Part 2!!! PLEASE!

Seriously - great post - printed out and in my Warrior Tips binder ;-)

[Tim Dixon]

Originally Posted by Melody

Part 2, Part 2!!! PLEASE!

Seriously - great post - printed out and in my Warrior Tips binder ;-)

LoL.

I am working on it I promise but it's very late here in the UK so I may have to finish it off tomorrow.

I'm glad people found this useful, it's certainly gratifying for me to think I've helped a few people with what I post.

Tim

[MizzCindy]

This was wonderful - great partner approach with Keith's thread. Thank you for taking the time to share it.

I'd love to see a part 2 and even a part 3! Bring on the tech-talk.

Cindy

[wealthcreation]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the method. I really am constantly amazed at the ingenuity expressed in this forum. And thanks Keith for your method also.

[Spike SpiegelIM]

Part 2! Part 2!

Interesting approach. Would definitely love to read more...

[Adriaan]

Hi Tim

I really like your idea, and I'm busy implementing it.

I know I'm digressing, but please indulge me.

Just a quick question:

Are you able to import the full feed, or just the heading? I'm a newbie, and most of the time I get a nice RSS feed, only to import just the heading, while I want the whole article.

And to import it as a blog post, I suppose RSS2HTML?

Please don't get me wrong, I don't want to plagiarise; either I'll make it my own or leave the author's bio-box intact.

I just want value for my readers.

Looking forward to your reply.

[Tim Dixon]

Hi Adriaan.

The way I use this is with WordPress blogs and using WP-O-Matic to create blog posts based on whatever is in the feed.

As you're talking about RSS2HTML I assume you are using this with a static site rather than a blog, but this can still be a valid implementation nonetheless.

As for your problem of it only displaying the titles and not the rest of the content in the feed, I would hazard a guess that this is to do with the template you are using and it not having the necessary tag (which I think is ~~~ItemDescription~~~ in RSS2HTML). to display the actual content.

Does that answer your questions?

Tim

[Tim Dixon]

OK.

You will all be pleased to know that I am close to finishing part 2. It had to take a bit of a back seat whilst I attended to getting my WSO up and running, but I have been able to spend some time on it today so keep a look out for it.

I will probably post it as a new thread with a similarly catchy title as this one but with Part 2 on the end (surprise surprise !)

Tim

[Noel2010]

Thanks for this informative post. Looking forward to part 2 and part 3...no part 3?

Thanks for sharing.

[Tim Dixon]

Lol. Part 3? I haven't even got past part 2 yet.......

Tim

[Tim Dixon]

Part 2 is now posted!!!
PART 2 - Turn Google Reader into a semi-automated blogging machine!
Tim

[moodykitty]

Thank you so much! Just a quick question. In the feed I'm getting 'Nickname Unavailable' for the notes I left. I went in and edited my profile but it's still the same. Anyone else have this problem? Will it resolve or do I need to start over?

Thanks again!
~C

[Tim Dixon]

Originally Posted by moodykitty

Thank you so much! Just a quick question. In the feed I'm getting 'Nickname Unavailable' for the notes I left. I went in and edited my profile but it's still the same. Anyone else have this problem? Will it resolve or do I need to start over?

Thanks again!
~C

Hi

When you say it's still the same, do you mean on notes you had already made, new ones or both?

Tim

[Ouroboros]

Tim,

This is probably a stupid question, but how do I manage the items from the feeds that I choose not to use? i.e I have multiple feeds that I'm looking at to get items from and I want to delete or mark those that I decide not to use so that I don't waste time going back through them later...

Can you just mark them as already read or?

Thanks,
Steve

[Tim Dixon]

Hi Steve.

Not a stupid question at all - in fact it's something I should probably have gone over in the original post.

The default setup of Google Reader will be that as you view each item, it marks it as read. (You can change that behaviour from the 'Settings' tab).

At the top of the window diaplying all the feed item, it says:
'Show: xx New Items - All Items'

If you click on 'New Items' it will only display the new items, not the ones you have read.

Unfortunately there is no way to actually delete items you don't want in your reader.

You can also (once you have everything you want from the feed) 'Mark all as read', then use the above tactic to just view the new stuff (useful for when you first subscribe to a feed).

You can also, if you're not sure whether or not you will use an item, select 'Keep as unread' (on the menu along the bottom of the item) so that it will still show up in your 'unread' item list.

Another way to mark items to look at later is to use the 'Star' option (clicking the little start next to the item), then you can find it easily later by going to 'Starred items' on the left hand menu. You can 'un-star' these as well once you're finished with them.

Hope that all helps.

Tim

[Francis Chan]

I got here after I saw your Part2.
Many thanks Tim for a great post!

*Bows*

[Tim Dixon]

Originally Posted by Francis Chan

I got here after I saw your Part2.
Many thanks Tim for a great post!

*Bows*

Thanks for the compliment, I hope that these posts continue to help people and don't forget to join WarPPIt.com so that you can vote for my threads on there!

Tim

[Mrs S]

So that's how you make feeds from your feeds in GR! I did always wonder - thanks

[capriliz]

I can't believe I missed this thread first time around!

Thank you, Tim. And I see that you have part 2 posted, so I am off to read that post.

[ibconsultants]

My goodness what wonderful information! God Bless you Tim!

Adrianne

[ibconsultants]

Originally Posted by Tim Dixon

Thanks for the compliment, I hope that these posts continue to help people and don't forget to join WarPPIt.com so that you can vote for my threads on there!

Tim

Tim I joined and voted for you 2 times. I didn't know about this site, so thanks!

Adrianne

[peter gibson]

this is awesome. Thanks heeps Tim. I'll be implementing this on my blog soon enough :-)

[Tim Dixon]

Originally Posted by peter gibson

this is awesome. Thanks heeps Tim. I'll be implementing this on my blog soon enough :-)

Originally Posted by ibconsultants

Tim I joined and voted for you 2 times. I didn't know about this site, so thanks!

Adrianne

Originally Posted by ibconsultants

My goodness what wonderful information! God Bless you Tim!

Adrianne

Originally Posted by capriliz

I can't believe I missed this thread first time around!

Thank you, Tim. And I see that you have part 2 posted, so I am off to read that post.

Originally Posted by Mrs S

So that's how you make feeds from your feeds in GR! I did always wonder - thanks

Glad you all found this useful.

After being hassled from all sides to get a PDF ebook written for this, I'm pleased to say that the first version is now available, see sig.

Tim