AutoBlogging for "Noobs" - A Guide

Oh, man, if you are manually editing every post to take out the link and the pic, you are doing too much work! Edit the template!

OK, I have never really laid out my philosophy on autoblogging here before - but I feel compelled, because there are several angles I use that are different than what I've seen expressed before, and I think people might get something out of it.

Everything I'm about to share is based on my own experience, other people's experiences may vary. Warning ahead of time - this will be long.

First of all, ASP is not necessary, in fact, in my experience, it hurts. Every time I've used it, rankings dip, I turn it off and a couple of weeks later, they rise again.

Secondly, when you set up an autoblog, you aren't just setting up that blog. Each blog should be considered a further experiment in "Perfecting the System." You will start to make real money autoblogging when you can put one up in two to three hours and move on. You will make REAL money autoblogging when you can train your outsourcers to do it. That's my next step.

Therefore, take notes. You're looking at getting it down to a step-by-step process that you can complete as quickly as possible. I've put up over 100 of these and I still follow my checklist as I do it. Why? I don't want to have to think about what comes next. That's a timesucker. I do a task, check it off, move on to the next.

Incidentally, it's a good point to keep in mind that you are not looking for any one autoblog to make you rich. Each one should pay its own rent (domain name and hosting) and make about a dollar a day, averaged. You will have some that far exceed that - AWESOME! But the point of autoblogging isn't to develop the one major property that's your ticket to success. It's to develop many small properties that each contribute their small part to your wealth-building.

Also, I feel that the design of the site is very important. With themes like Super Adsense by Gobala Krishnan, among many others, it's SO EASY to change up the header (you can make one in ten minutes) and switch out the background colors and link colors.

Which brings up ANOTHER good point - you are not going to have to be a coding wizard, but do learn your basic HTML and CSS. It will make your autoblogging life pretty much hell if you don't, and it's pretty frickin' easy to learn. There are tutorials all over the internet.

My plugins are as follows:

- All-in-One SEO
- BayRSS
- Caffienated Content
- Admin Management Extended
- Google Sitemap Generator
- Link Cloaking Plugin
- Manageable
- MaxBlogPress Favicon
- MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer
- Ping Crawl (although, I gotta say, I'm not totally sold on Ping Crawl...)
- ReCaptcha
- Reveal IDs
- SEO Siloing
- Share This
- WP-O-Matic
- WP Related Posts
- Ad Rotator

I also install Syndicate Kahuna, WP Datafeed Importer, and WP Dripfeeder (although, in my experience...it's buggy as hell. If I have less than 100 PLR articles, I post and future date by hand.)

A lot of how much of the above technology I use on any particular blog depends on the niche and the appropriateness of the types of content they bring in. I don't use everything for every one. I use my judgement. But for these purposes, let's assume I've found some magic niche that needs everything.

If it's going to be a really big site, I use a silo structure and the SEO Siloing plugin makes it really easy. That means, in essence, I have pages which list the links of all the posts in a category, and they automatically grow as new posts are added to the category.

The most time consuming part of building the site, aside from choosing the keywords, is deciding on the category structure. You don't want to go back and fix that later.

I usually keep "Questions and Answers" and "Videos" in their own categories rather than splitting them up thematically, but that's just me.

I then post my automated content. I run articles and questions from CC. I edit the template for the questions each time before I run a new keyword to include my BayRSS code at the bottom, so ebay ads related to the question show up. I do this in Cpanel, though, or with notepad and then FTP.

I set up Syndicate Kahuna to add keyword-specific articles. I import PLR. I sometimes add an RSS Feed or two.

HERE'S MY FAVORITE PART, THOUGH!!! And, oddly to me, the part I've never seen another autoblogger mention.

I start importing my databases. I get datafeeds from Share a Sale and manipulate them and import them with WP Datafeed Importer.

But it goes so far beyond that! I don't want to give away ALL my secrets , but let me just say...anything that exists in a CSV can be imported once you put it in the right format, and almost anything on the web can be put into CSV format.

The great thing? You can manipulate it before you import it. If it's data you scraped or a database you purchased (like, movie cast lists or video game cheats or something...), you can switch the order of some of the columns, you can add labels in between the columns, you can add your own links or BayRSS code at the end...it's really endless possibilities. AAANNNDDDD....it turns it into "original content", because it bears very little resemblance to what it started out as.

Lastly - don't forget that autoblog content can actually be supplemental to a quote-unquote "real" site that you do interact with readers on. Just make a front page that has welcome text and links to what you'd like to feature - then the "autoblog" parts just become entry points to the main part of the site.

OK, end of my manifesto.

Hi xlfutur1,

This will make your life easier.
Open your CC files on your hard drive.
Open the links file
In there you will see two text files, links.txt & links2.txt, open them.
Delete everything in them or change the text to links that benefit your site. Your choice
Now save the files
Open your FTP software & overwrite the links.txt & links2.txt on your server with the altered ones.

That should solve your problem with the links.
Not sure what graphic it is pulling, please clarify

Dave

Hmm won't you lose interaction with your readers this way?

Has anyone else tried this before? It seems to be a viable strategy for generating content on top of other hand written or ghostwrited content.

iMerickz,

Is the RSS poster you're referring to the one by Big Mike?

Ivan

Ivan,

you are right. I *usually* make more general niche blogs, for example "natural remedies"...and then i can at least target a common theme from the CBProads, eg. "cures and remedies".

I have one blog where there is only ONE product, this after Steve W. had an WSO and recommended this niche.

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then i usually go out and get banners for a specific product. It speaks also nothing against to promote *specific* products on sub-pages on your blog, you can always add and write reviews or "sales pages" within your blog - in addition to whats automatically posted on it.

So...nothing against a "natural remedy blog"...and then if you feel up to it you can promote your favorite "acne cure" on a page in the blog.

(Not a shameless plug, but what works PERFECTLY is my "Affililiate Power Script" (despite the recent controversy about copyright issues)..since it allows easily to clone ANY clickbank page, and then just "plug" it as a sub-page.

Eg. i make a site "naturalremedies" and then i get my favorite clickbank product, load the script up to the blog and then just call it like
myremedysite.com/some_product.php <--- )

But of course there are various ways to promote specific products, you could also use PLR articles and then just hand-edit a bit and insert your aflinks.

>>
For instance, on a Skin Care site I could be displaying health related ads, such as ads for Yoga, Dieting, and Eczema. It seems to be difficult matching the Adgroups to the ads displayed, although it's possible to match the Adwords to the content of the landing page.

How effective have you found CBProAds to be? They do look good, just not as well targeted, which would affect click thrus and conversions.
>>

well cbproads allows selecting of the usual CB categories, but it also has an option for keyword based ads. So..you could just enter "acne" and it should display all products from the acne niche.

just a word on Caffeinated Content and apologies if this has been posted before, but you can also use it to drip-feed/autopost PLR articles (or your own articles) by FTPing them onto the specific CC directory with your CC installation

in truth I am just starting to do this earnest but if you mix it up a bit with CC and use
i) A few articles from the directories
ii) Some Youtube videos
iii) Your own articles drip fed
iv) PLR articles drip fed
v) For the 'Yahoo Answers' I setup a category called 'Q&A' and dripfeed them in there

It's good to see this thread being updated. George, do you want to bring us up to speed with your recent refinements?

I haven't been going into mass blogging, although I have quite a few that I'd describe as semi-auto. I prefer to monitor closely the more important blogs, although the content arrives on the different blogs as a draft that awaits approval. These are mostly full articles from various sources, including directories. I then add graphics and any extra content I feel necessary.

If only one or two posts per day need to be attended to, it's easily possible to keep track of several dozen blogs with some hands on attention.

Ivan