I realized today that I’ve rarely talked about the importance of having your auto blogs not look like auto blogs.  That’s for a number of reasons – the biggest one of course being that conversions are better if you look like a real site.

A nice theme, smart ad placement, and using anything out there you can find to make your site more “usable” can go a long way.

In my opinion (and testing) those “contextual” ads where the links appear in your content kill conversions, ctr rates, etc…  I never use them and I actually rarely stay on a site that has them.  I’m one of those idiots that highlight what I’m reading and I always click on them by mistake.

There are tons of ways to make your site look less like than a pile of crap (even if it is).

• Make sure you have a single category that has some real content.  Might be pictures, some video, articles from somewhere, or even original content (defeats the auto blog concept though).
• Make a post or page to be your default index page.  That way your spam isn’t showing at the root – the spiders can follow through the links in the sidebar or the archive.
• You can also use a few plugins to “hide” categories you are auto posting to.  I’m not sure if I like this or not – you still get trackback and ping credit, but there aren’t as many links going to the pages this way.
• Use widgets to make your site look more involved.  Check this out:  Widget Box
• Use other plugins to display additional content or pictures.

That “nice” content on the front page will go a long way towards your auto blog staying in the serps longer.  If you take your time and do a nice one it could possibly last forever — and you will rank better, etc…