I finally did it…

After many months of asking clients to use text based template I finally bit the bullet and installed a swish new order form for ordering automated blogs. To use it all that is needed is to copy/paste the information that we need to share into the form. When the ‘Submit’ button is pressed all the data is uploaded to a server and I get an immediate notification that the order has been placed.

Because I am using a trusted 3rd party server to host the form there is no worry about spam or hijacking of the form. I am aware that some people prefer to be ultra-cautious about data and so it is still possible to send hosting account info to me by email, but, in my opinion, this system is more than secure enough for our needs.

If there are any questions about this improved system please just send me an email.

Andrew Wilson.

Since we started building blogs (automated blogs) for clients in September 2006 we have been providing automated services to reduce the amount of work that the webmaster must do in order to maintain his site.

The automation usually needs some kind of timing and one important element of the timing has been provided by an external service. www.cronservice.co.uk. In my opinion it is better to run the service from within the site as this avoids any kind of external service quality issues and is under the control of the site owner. Sadly we did not have access to a good quality tool for the purpose. Well, now we do. I have been trying out a plugin called VirtualCron which can be downloaded from here: http://www.worldwidecreations.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2578.
You may need to register with the forum to get the download.

So, now, if you choose you can move away from the external service and have all the actions of the site under your control. I think this is a good thing.

Installation is easy. Documentation is on the admin page of the plugin when you log into your site and look under options for VirtualCron. There is also a support forum for the tool at the download address.

Basic instructions (which make more sense when you have the plugin installed) follow.

1) Download the plugin from the address above.
2) Install the plugin and activate it as normal.
3) Place a link to each page of the site by inserting a link to a tiny/invisible graphic on every page by pasting a link into the Statcounter admin box. The format of the link is shown on the admin panel.
4) Then you make a cron job in the virtualcron page, I suggest that to start with you just copy the format like this: * 6 1,4,7,10,13,16,19,22,25,28,31 * * pasted into the box marked “Run Custom Timing” and tick the appropriate check box.
5) Insert the URL to be called in the following format into the box marked “Command or URL to
Execute”: http://mydomain.com/strangle.php
6) Check the box marked “Activate URL”, save and that is it.

In the example setting above you will have posts going off from SmartRss every third day at about 06:00

The first number in this case 6 can be changed to any number between 0 and 23 and you might want to do so as that is the hour the script will run and you might want to give a more random effect by changing that time.

The Virtualcron plugin controls all the Rss feeds coming to your SmartRss plugin (wp-adin/options/smartRss ).

All new sites are being set up with this plugin. If you choose to install VirtualCron then please let me know and tell me which sites so I can remove your sites from the external service (we don’t want you getting too much new content, not good SEO.)

If you wish me to install VirtualCron for you then please let me know, we will have to charge for this at $10 per site but if you wish we will include this in a site update whereby we will add VirtualCron, add up to 100 syndicated articles, all made ‘unique’ by using tips as we have been doing previously, into your site for new keywords. If not already present we will add a new article directory source of content that updates the instant new content is distributed giving you the freshest content available, often before it is indexed in the search engines. The cost to ‘refresh’ your sites is just $20 per site. Emails for update orders to refresh (@) knowhow-now.com

Thanks for using our services!

Andrew.

There are several ways to manage automated posting and other functions on WordPress blogs (automated blogs).

automated blogs use three systems. The first is a cron job that runs roughly every other day. It triggers the Rss feeds that bring in news and other feeds from other sites across the internet. To ensure consistency and reliability we use an external cron service to provide the trigger that makes the new post appear. The service is set so that the timing is not exact, it changes a little each time the cron job runs.

Second we have future dated posts, these articles are inserted when the blog is installed but have a date of posting set sometime in the future, usually we set these articles to be posted at random times once each day.

Thirdly we have articles controlled by an WordPress plugin called wp-autocron, this provides a ‘pseudo-cron’ and is pretty reliable. It does not need a cron job to be installed on a server in order to work. But, wp-autocron is triggered by visits to the site by a human, or a search engine spider. If the site has no activity then no content is collected from the external sources. This is not really a problem as most sites are visited pretty regularly, usually by humans! If you see a time based function that does not seem to be working on your automated blogs, then try making a visit to your site. It might just be that, particularly on a brand new site, that you have not had a visitor for a few hours.

When considering the keywords to use in your LAMM install it is worth thinking about how the words are used. For example, when we are searching for content to place in your site about computers, well, it does not make a lot of sense to have a category ‘computers’ and another for ‘laptop computers’. Basically, the articles in the ‘computers’ category search will include all possible keywords that go along with computers. So, computers would include, ‘laptop computers’, ‘desktop computers’, ‘handheld computers’ etc, etc, etc.

SO, try to think of words that have similar meaning, or just use the word on its own. So, you could have ‘laptop’ (although that might include unrelated stuff about people’s laps - but we would filter that as part of our research, but the Rss feeds might pull in stuff you don’t want!). Better might be ‘laptop PC’.

If thinking about boats, then try to think of other kinds of boats, sailing boats, dinghys, kayaks etc.

Here is a little tool I use to find out if a term is worth using: http://www.adsenseads.com
With this tool I simply start tying in the word I am researching and the site searches its database and returns the highest priced words, in Adsense bids, so if I start typing with a ‘c’, thinking of computers, straight away the screen shows the highest bidding word, and its value, that starts with the letter ‘c’. Today that is ‘college loan consolidation’ at $68.35. then as I add in letters new word lists show up until I end up with ‘computers’ at $8.75.

The nice thing is that not only can one go ‘niche surfing’ to find a high paying niche, one also gets a load of suggestions for valuable sub-niches within your main theme, so I learned that ‘computer degrees online’ is selling for almost $19 and ‘computers laptops’ is worth almsot $14. maybe an idea for a new LAMM category?

A user came up with a few questions today that I thought might be worth sharing. I have only edited the email very slightly.

1.  Once the blogs are set up, should I submit a site map to Google
Sitemaps?I install a plugin that will generate the sitemaps you need. You do need
to give the info to Google to complete the circle. As the site updates
the sitemap system automatically shouts at Google.

2.  Do you use name capture pages or system on your blogs?  If not, do
you depend solely on the one time clickthrus of adsense and affiliate
links?

I have had no time to make sites for myself for some time now! I am only
just starting to make updates to existing older ones, but given the volume of
incoming work that’ll get put back as well!
But, I have got a plugin to work with Aweber for autoresponder use. I
have been playing with it. I will be happy to install and set the thing
up on any blog but there will be a charge as it does take an appreciable
amount of time to do. We can make your autoresponder work from posts now, so that the autoresponder always appears at the top of the page with the rest of the content below. Also, we can put the response box into a nav bar if you choose.

3.  With regards to promoting the blog, do you have posts on your blog
about this and so I am not duplicating what you are setting in place?

I don’t have enough about blog promotion at the moment. I have just
uploaded a free ebook that is worth a look.
http://littleautomaticmoneymaker.com/whatsalamm/free-internet-marketing-ebooks-to-download
I was recomending JP Schoeffel’s set of videos and I wrote a little
about them here:
http://littleautomaticmoneymaker.com/blog-promotion/promoting-your-lamms
IMHO they are full of good information but frankly I find it hard to
recomend them at the price, although I am certain that, if followed and
used, the return would still hugely exceed the outlay.
In general I would be using tools that enable social bookmarking. I have
two suggestions, the most expensive but in context of blogging, the
best, is AutoSocialPoster, AutoSocialPoster“>http://www.suggestedby.us/AutoSocialPoster
(affiliate Link) as you can ‘fit and forget’ this one. If you buy
through my link I will install and configure it on each of your blogs
that I make for you. The other is Ultrabookmarker, this is a subscription service and is,
IMHO best for either brand new blogs or ordinary web sites.
http://www.suggestedby.us/ultrabookmarker (affiliate link). This is the
tool that I use when setting up your automated blogs. I would not want to be
without it but ongoing and automationwise, AutoSocialPoster is the
‘mutts nuts’.Over time  I want to expand the use of littleautomaticmoneymaker.com for
information and support, so I need to explore using it rather than email
for some support/promotion stuff; then it may become a force multiplier
for me.

When you place orders for your automated blogs I can now give you a confident delivery date for the last site in your order. The order should be completed by the date I tell you when you order, of course, I hope to have them completed sooner!

As each site is built by hand we do not simply plug your data into a script and let it run. The templates are optimised and developed and as new techniques and improvements are possible I do my best to incorporate them into new orders.

I hope that an expected delivery date will prove to be useful to all users of automated blogs

I put together this list of keyword feeds for use in automatic blogging projects. They can be used as replacements for the feeds I supply with the automated blogs. Bear in mind that you will probably need to update these feeds more often than once per day and also, you may find you need to use more than one feed per keyword/category.

URL formats for making custom rss feeds.

The following is a list of URL formats that can be used to build keyword based custom feeds. To use them just replace the words dental & insurance with your own keywords. If you need more words just follow the URL format and add as many keywords as you need. These are very useful for building autoblogs to support niche sites (or automated blogs).

Have fun.

Google News:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-&output=rss&q=social+networks

Google Blogsearch:

http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&q=dental+insurance&btnG=Search+Blogs&num=10&output=rss

Knowhow-now.com Article Directory:

http://knowhow-now.com/articlerss.php?type=4&q=social%20networking

url search:

http://knowhow-now.com/index.php?q=social+networking&page=search&search.x=12&search.y=10

Technorati Blog search:

http://feeds.technorati.com/feed/posts/tag/dental+insurance

Blogdigger feed aggregator:

http://www.blogdigger.com/search?q=dental+insurance&sortby=date&type=rss

ContentFetcher.com social bookmark feed:

http://contentfetcher.com/rss/tag/dental+insurance

IceRocket Blog search:

http://a9.com/-/opensearch/search/B000813UAS/dental%20insurance?count=10&startPage=1

API news agency feed:

http://api.blogmarks.net/rss/tag/dental+insurance

Scuttle social bookmark feed:

http://scuttle.com/rss/tag/dental+insurance

MSN News:

http://search.msn.com/news/results.aspx?format=rss&FORM=RSNR&q=social+networking

http://search.msn.com/news/results.aspx?q=dental+insurance&format=rss&FORM=RSNR

MSN Search:

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?format=rss&FORM=RSNR&q=social+networking

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=dental+insurance&format=rss&FORM=RSRE

Newsnetplus feed aggregator:

http://www.newsnetplus.com/xml.php?rowindex=10&words=dental%20insurance&mode=normal&sort=1

Washington Post:

http://socialistsushi.com/wp/myspace

Topix Feeds:

http://rss.topix.net/search/?q=dental+insurance&xml=1

Yahoo! News Feeds:

http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/rss?p=dental+insurance&ei=UTF-8

Yahoo! search engine feeds: http://api.search.yahoo.com/WebSearchService/rss/webSearch.xml?appid=yahoosearchwebrss&query=dental+insurance&adult_ok=1

Yooci search engine:

http://www.yooci.com/search?query=%22social+networking%22&lang=en&type=RSS

Furl Social Bookmarking:

http://rss.furl.net/members/rss.xml?topic=Social%20networks

Del.ico.us Social Bookmarking:

http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/dental+insurance

Plazoo search engine:

http://www.plazoo.com/en/rss2/dental_insurance.rss

FeedsFarm aggregator:

http://www.feedsfarm.com/s/dental+insurance&format=rss

Flickr Photosharing:

http://flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?tags=dental+insurance&format=rss_200

Feedster aggregator:

http://feedster.com/search.php?q=dental+insurance&sort=date&ie=UTF-8&hl=&content=full&type=rss&limit=15

Find Articles Directory:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/search?qt=dental+insurance&qf=free&tb=art&pi=rss If you find more of these, please post them. One can never have too many of keyword feeds! 

A LAMM is a Little Automatic Money Maker. automated blogs are WordPress blogs that have been designed and set up to run automatically with negligable direct input from the webmaster in their day to day running.

automated blogs are monetised using several different streams: Adsense, Affiliate Links, Banners and text links according to the wishes of the owner.

Content is provided in a layered approach giving a mixture of posts from RSS feeds, syndicated article sources and unique content. The balance being under the control of the site owner. The LAMM can be a standalone system or the site owner may choose to make his/her presence felt through personal posts.

Because they carry relevant keyword and theme based content and are updated in a fairly natural manner the search engines like automated blogs and willingly come to feed from them. Indexing is thus not a problem. Of course, success in running a Little Automatic Money Maker is dependent upon how well the owner drives traffic to the site. The sites are search engine friendly with many visible and invisible features to help the search engines but the owner needs to market the sites for best effect. But, once the sites are indexed, even without proper promotion, the sites will still attract some visitors and a little money.

Some examples of recent automated blogs:

http://wifi.infohelpportal.com

http://www.choosinggreatgolfclubs.com

http://fire-alarm.infohelpportal.com

http://best-student-loan-guide.com

Let us make some money for you!