Well I asked for 5 comments for me to spout off about how I auto blog…. and I got it. I’ll start off by saying that there are MANY ways to run an auto blog, and go into that (at least a few of my favorite methods) – then I’ll cover a bit on how I monetize mine.

I used to use WP-O-Matic and Feed WordPress (you can get feed wordpress here) to run my auto blogs, but found (as many of you have I’m sure) that it’s a great way to get banned. Nothing but RSS content on a hastily thrown up blog is a surefire way to get banned. My auto blogs are based off many of the tools I’ve already made available to you inside NSS 2 – some of them are in development right now so I can let you guys have them and have them easier to use. However, if you aren’t a member even a minor amount of coding could cobble together your own system quite easily.

Method 1:

I could go into great detail, but I’ve been using a “data storage” and auto posting script for about a year that lets me load up a TON of content easily. I pull in content, video, and rss feeds. I the change the titles, and “mix” it all up. I use an auto poster to randomly make those posts over the course of months, years, or weeks. Looking at the sites you might see my grammer ocasionally stinks, but you can see that here too   It’s not ready for public use yet, but I’ve already put up the domain and blog to give NSS 2 folks access when it’s ready.

Method 2:

I put up a couple of real posts and links to it and let it sit for weeks, or even months before I get back to it.  You have to give “G” some time to really spider your site and establish that it’s there before going any further.

I then use the scripts I’ve made available here or in NSS 2 to really go to town. I might fill the blog up with snippets from my other blogs or from shareasale, or ebay, or amazon.  I’ll dump entire databases “mixed together” into it in a matter of days.  (I TURN MY PINGING OFF FOR THIS).

Then I post up a single article (original or scraped from ezine articles)…. and I proceed to ignore the blog except for the occasional link building.

Long tail searches happen.

Method 3.

This is pretty close to what I have above – but more of a traditional auto blog with just RSS feeds.  I do it a little different though.  I run a cron job to dump RSS feed items into a database once a day for each keyword.  I index the database by keyword as well so I can spit out my own RSS feeds (it’s basically RSS REBOUND just with out a interface to use).

The script works like this:

• Grab RSS Items from Google Blog Search Query.
• Enters them into the database with a “NEW” date.  Basically I date the items for 3 months down the road. If you were just starting out this wouldn’t work… you have to gather rss items for a couple months for this to work.
• Pull the items randomly that are with in a week of being current along with a single item from todays google search results.

I end up with new items and old items mixed together…. since no one else is posting about what happened 3 months ago I end up one of the top results in Google Blog Search.

RSS REBOUND is a great way for this to be done if you aren’t a coder.  It’s why I made it.  There is also a FREE RSS aggregator inside Blackhatdigest somewhere in the 30 day guide.  It’s a basic little script but would let you spend a few minutes a day adding your own content snippets to post to dozens of blogs if you wanted.

Method 4.

This is something I’ve only done manually and never got around to coding (mainly because I haven’t figured out how to upload remotely to wordpress yet – on my list).  I gather hundreds of images on a topic from places like flickr or other public places (don’t want to deal with copyright infringment if I don’t have to).  I post each one with a description and a hyperlink to the index of the site.

(warning – cover your ass with this one. Even being careful with pictures you didn’t take you can still get in trouble. Do a google search for getty image lawsuit and you will see what I’m talking about. I would hope the domain, hosting, etc… isn’t in your name or anyone else that you care about).

I will say that one of my sites I paid someone else to dump a few hundred images on with appropriate anchor text and it does quite well with CPM ads.  Lot’s of visits from Google Images.

I’m sure there is a way to automate this – so get to it

There are tons of ways to autoblog and to get content — SO many places spit out RSS feeds these days that you don’t have the excuse that you can’t find content.  I’ll be the first to admit that how I do my auto blogging doesn’t always qualify as a “SPLOG” because I put some real effort into that content. It’s not as fast as other methods, but I get the trackback benefits and don’t get  banned (or rarely).

What is your goal?

Notice how big I made those words?  I’ve seen dozens of you putting up auto blogs and you don’t have a goal at all.  Deciding to put up a blog on “Toys” isn’t real bright.  Making an auto blog to rank for “r2d2 toys” is a great idea.  It’s got to be a niche – something small that’s both easy to rank for, and somewhat in demand.  Use the free tools or Wordze (you should see if the free friday happy hour is still going on) to do some research should tell you what’s going on.  Even small volume search terms can be profitable (I made 3k last year on a site that gets 4 to 15 visits a day).

Decide what long tail terms you are going for.  Decide what and how you will promote. THEN BUILD THE DAMN NETWORK — not the other way around.

How To Monetize:

You really only have a few options -CPA,CPM, Contextual,  Link Sales, and my favorite is building a list using pop-ups and forms embedded in my posts.  I use a plug in called WP-generic Footer to embed whatever I want at the bottom of every post.  There are also plugins to embed at the top.

Newsletter Monetization:

I use aweber and actually create my newsletters before ever creating a single blog on the topic.  Let’s say I decide I want to kick some tail in the “auto parts” world.  I’ll find a few affiliate programs to sign up for, and load up about 40 messages in the newsletter.  Half of course are soley for commissions   Once that’s ready I’ll spit out 10, 20, 30 autoblogs on the subject. It’s a weeklong project but it earns for a long time.

CPA Monetization:

I’ll admit this drives me absolutely up the wall.  I know many people do VERY well with CPA and autoblogs. I don’t most of the time – I’ve got blogs that get traffic and don’t earn anything when I put up a CPA ad.  The good thing about using a plugin to embed whatever method you are montizing with is that you can change it easily instead of editing all your posts.

Contextual (adsense) Monetization:

Adsense is a gamble with any type of automated site.  The fact that you get a lot of traffic that doesn’t convert well can actually hurt your income elsewhere that gets good traffic.  I don’t recommend adsense (not because I’m afraid of a ban – just because it doesn’t make financial sense).

Link Sales – The Easiest I think:

If you are auto blogging the right way you are hopefully building pages that others are interested in.  Let’s say your blog is really about R2D2 – you would have a number of star wars words available for linking — and it probably wouldn’t hurt your rankings for R2D2.

The bad news…. you are going to have a hard time getting into linkxl, textlinkads, etc… with an auto blog.  You might have to manually manage your sales or if you just decide to sell sidebar links use something like oiopublisher (their marketplace is not as active as I would hope).  Either way you are going to be managing selling your links.

Forums can be a gold mine….

If you don’t mind a little leg work, you can make enough to cover your time, hosting, and domain costs just by posting in a few webmaster forums that you are accepting posts, link sales, etc… to your blogs on XYZ topic.  Don’t publicly give your urls out BTW – Google doesn’t like you buying or selling links.

Well kids that’s it. There isn’t a big secret about auto blogging monetization.  The really important thing is making yourself look legit – and of course having a goal in mind before you get started.  I think the “GOAL” part is where most people fail at this.  Pick a topic you want to rule in and go to town till you get there.  The money will come while you do that.

Sure a theme might flop (toasters – can’t sell the damn things online as near as I can tell), but by going for longer tail keywords you can really get somewhere fast.

There are only 5 comments on the thread where you have to explain how you monetize your auto blogs (those 5 comments unlocked this post).  If you want me to give away goodies for getting to 10 you better go comment there.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.