Auto blogging and Content

 

Four kinds of auto blogging!

  1. Wp Omatic
  2. Other peoples feeds
  3. Blogging Empire
  4. RSS Autoresponders
  5. Resources for content

1. Wp Omatic

WP-o-Matic is a Wordpress plugin that will allow you to create posts automatically from feeds. With its simple interface, you just type in the feed url, select in which categorie you want to create the posts, and you’re ready to go.

Screenshots

These are some screenshots from the admin view:

Feed Wp Omatic

Feed

Features

WP-o-Matic aims to provide all the features you can find in Autoblogger PRO software, which retails for $299. This includes, but is not limited to:

When it comes out of beta, WP-o-Matic will support:

Download

Click here to download WP-o-Matic 0.2-beta.

WP-o-Matic is released under the MIT license.

Installation Instructions

Unzip wpomatic-0.2beta.zip in wp-content/plugins/ and enable it. Chmod 777 wpomatic.log.php if you are going to enable logging.

2. Other peoples feeds or content - Use with caution

Now that you have wpomatic installed you can get feeds from different sources that other people have written that apply to your topic. Make sure before you add any feed that you have the right to add that feed. There is nothing worse than getting your hosting company shutting you down because you violated copywright.

Finding these free feeds maybe a little difficult so if you find good ones make sure you add them to the forum or in the comments below. Usually you will find news and similar content free to add to your blog however the more specific information can get a little tricky.

If you find something you like then you can always contact the author to see if you can add it to your blog.

3. Blogging Empire

One way to auto blog is link your blogs together. This is a technique that I don’t think to many people know about or use.

Say you were setting up a whole range of blogs to do with investing. You might create one for shares and one for futures and another for managed accounts etc. what you could do is link some of them up using wpomatic so when you posted to one the others would get the information. You obviously would not link them all together as you would then create a loop and they would all keep posting to each other. What I normally do is set up a controll blog which I add all the generic information to and then this posts to all the other blogs that would use similar information. In the system I have set up I use three controll blogs to distribute to 30 other blogs. One is for articles, one is for products and the other is for tips and tricks.

4. RSS Autoresponders - http://www.rssautoresponder.com

When you go to the site you can get a free campaign with unlimited feeds. You can then add as many feeds as you like and again use wpomatic. This means you could write a years content and have it posted every couple of days into your blog automatically.

I have set one up at http://msiphotoshop.com/rss-reader/ Just fill in the form and add it to your blog under graphic catagory and I will deliver you content for 20 days.

If you decide to use this system and want to let the rest of us use your content add your from in the comments below.

5. Resources for content

Blogging is great fun. It’s exciting. You start out with great ideas, full of motivation and inspiration. After a while, though, you run out of steam. The muse isn’t so amused any more and you start hunting for content, things to write about.

There are two aspects of finding content for your blog. First, it is to find the inspiration that generates original content on your blog. This can come from a variety of sources. Basically, it can be a news story, fellow blogger’s post, an interesting web page you stumbled across, something a friend said, or anything that interests you enough to research and write about it.

The second aspect is to find links. A lot of bloggers seem to specialize in finding interesting content and providing a link and maybe a few words to recommend to their readers that they check out the original content on someone else’s blog or site. While this isn’t so much about finding original content for your blog, it is about finding information and resources that is helpful to your readers.

Either way, when the well runs dry, where do you go to find more content to keep the river of babble flowing on your blog?

I’ve put together a huge list of content resources for you to peruse and investigate for possible blog content. It certainly isn’t a list of all the content, resources, and information out there, but it is designed to get you thinking about all the content, resources, and information out there for you to blog about. And there is a lot out there. If I have missed a favorite resource of yours, please add it below in the comments. I love looking up new avenues of inspiration.

I’ve grouped the different resources for finding content for your blog into the following categories:

Top News Stories

The news is probably one of the most popular resources for stories. Many people monitor or to keep up with what is going on around the world or in your backyard. While the “top 10 news stories” may be intriguing for some, there is a lot of news out there to digest and dig through, finding potential stories. I’ve collected a few interesting and more unusual places to find news, often news that doesn’t make the main headlines, to help you start thinking about where and how you find news to write about on your blog.

Industry News and Resources

If you are blogging about a specific subject or industry, monitor the news stories coming out of that industry. There are many industries to choose from, and they are not always all encompassing. For example, if you are interested in the blogging industry, not all the information on blogging might be of interest to you. You might only be interested in bloggers blogging in Japan or China, not the whole world. So your need for news resources covers a very wide industry but narrows to a specific focus.

The following is a general example of some industry news and resources available online. For a specific industry, hit the search engines for your industry keywords. Whatever your blogging topic, the odds are that there are one or more industries which support it. So search far and wide to find good resources for your blog stories.

Tag and Social Bookmarking Services

Tags and social bookmarking services are similar but different. Social bookmarking actually is the term that refers to users recommending which topics are most popular with them. This is done through votes and by tags.

A site or software tool that collects and stores your recommended or “bookmarked” sites is called a Social Bookmarking Manager. Some Social Bookmarking Managers are private, but the ones that will usually serve you better are the public ones, which show the world what you think is important information, and asks others to “vote” for your recommendations as you vote on theirs, and the winners rise to the top.

Tags are mini-categories for blog content, tagged by the blog owner or visitor. Used in combination with social bookmarking, you can search through tag services for the most popular posts within a specific tag category based upon traffic, voting, or other recommendations.

Tags and social bookmarking help Internet users talk to each other, sharing favorite posts and articles. They also help let you, the blogger, get a feel for what topics are popular at the moment. If it is popular enough, you may want to blog about it. By monitoring these “most popular” lists, whether by overall category or tags specific to your interests, you can keep a finger on the pulse of public opinion.

Most Popular/High Traffic

There are many lists online that list the “most popular” websites, blogs, topics, news, products, services, and more. By monitoring these sites, you can stay on top of what is attracting the most attention.

Most popular lists are based upon a variety of criteria. For a few, it is just what is most popular to them, the individual or group, as they see it, often with their own criteria. For most “most popular lists”, though, popularity is solely based upon measurable data such as actual purchases or highest visitor traffic.

For high traffic sites or blogs, there is a lot to learn as well as be inspired by. What are they talking about? How are they talking about the subjects? Where are they getting their information and resources? Should you be following their lead? Use high traffic and most popular sites and blogs as resources for possible content and ideas.

If you don’t see a specific “most popular” topic of interest to you, in a search engine type in “most popular” with a keyword for your interest, like WordPress, and the search results will include the most popular WordPress Themes, plugins, tips, techniques, blogs, and other WordPress related most popular items. From here, you can find sites to monitor for the “most popular” topics for your blog.

Top Search Results

Another method of finding content is to find out what people are searching for. Search engines and other search engine monitoring resources are always keeping an eye on what topics are most popular by counting up the top search keywords and phrases.

There are several different types of reports for tracking top search results. Old style but useful lists include top search keywords and phrases from seardh engines. More modern style top search results show you live, as-it-happens search action, which may or may not reflect the most popular searches but shows you what people are searching for in the moment. Which ever method attracts you, there is a lot of information and inspiration that can be gleaned.