I’ve been asked many times to explain how to automate WordPress posting. You can see an example of what an automated WordPress site looks like by going to newjustin.com. This process should work no matter who hosts your site, but I’m going to explain how to do it using Go Daddy.
Special Note: This is the process taught by most of the internet gurus. You know the people who sell supposed get rich quick programs for a few thousand dollars?
How much money will this really make you? After a month, the site above generated about $18 in monthly revenue. I’m almost certain that the expensive programs generate almost as much money or less?
So, if you cut out the cost of hosting, $6.99 at Go Daddy, that is an extra $11 in your pocket per month. Multiply that times the number of sites you own and that number goes up significantly! Your welcome;) Note: After 3 months the blogs are now earning an average of $26.95!
If you don’t know what I mean by automating WordPress hosting? By installing a specific plugin called WP-O-Matic, you will be able to pull articles from any other site and have them post to your WordPress site. You do this by checking for changes in RSS feeds, but I found a way to pull data from sites that don’t have RSS feeds also. More on that later.
AutoBlogged is the professional feed grabber I talked about in the video. It is the best I have found, for the money.
Get and Set Up WP-O-Matic
If you don’t already have a WordPress site set up, watch the videos on this page How to Blog. Then just follow these steps to install the WP-O-Matic Plugin:
First Install SimplePie (Don’t worry about why)
- In WordPress, click on Plugins in your left sidebar
- Click on Add New in the left side bar
- Search for SimplePie Core
- Click on Install Now under SimplePie
- If you get a popup that asks do you want to install SimplePie, click OK
- Click Activate Plugin on the next page that pops up
Install WP-o-Matic
- In WordPress, click on Plugins in your left sidebar
- Click on Add New in the left side bar
- Search for wp-o-matic
- Click on Install Now under WP-O-Matic
- If you get a popup that asks do you want to install WP-O-Matic, click OK
- Click Activate Plugin on the next page that pops up
- Under Settings, in your left side bar, click on WP-o-Matic
- A setup screen opens
- Yes SimplePie works on Go Daddy, but you can run the test if you’d like
- You installed SimplePie in the last phase
- Click next
- Make sure your time zone is set and then click Next
Setting Up a Cron Job
Now don’t freak out. This sounds a lot more complicated than it is. You are basically just copying and pasting the code that is provided.
- Copy the code that looks like this */20 * * * * /usr/bin/curl http://www.thewebdesignersite.com…
- Login to your Go Daddy, or other hosting plan (The rest of the steps are specific to Go Daddy)
- Click on My Account
- Under My Products in your left sidebar, click on Hosting
- Next to the hosting account you want to use, click Launch
- Under Content at the top of your screen click on Cron Manager
- Click on Edit, next to the Email Address heading and enter your email
- Click save
- Click Create Cron Job
- Give the job a title
- Paste in the command you got from WP-o-Matic
- Set the frequency to zero for day and hour
- Set minutes to 15 or whatever you’d like
- Click Save
Create a Cache Folder in Go Daddy
Since you’re already in Go Daddy, you might as well set up a folder you’ll need later.
- Click on the Home tab
- Click on Your Files
- Click on wp-content
- Click on plugins
- Click on wp-o-matic
- Click on Create New Directory and give it the name cache
- Click in the box next to the cache directory and click on the Permissions box
- Click on the Advanced Permissions tab
- Make sure all the box’s are ticked off under Owner Permissions, but leave the others alone
- Click OK
Back to WP-O-Matic
- Make sure the box is clicked next to the words “I’ll be using a cron job…”
- Click Next
- Click Submit
Set Up Options for WP-O-Matic
- Click on the options link
- Check off every box
- Click Save
Link to a RSS Feed
Most websites you would want to take articles from have RSS feeds. The RSS feed just provides a list of the most recent articles and a brief description of the article.
You can find tons of feeds here Bloglines. Here are some of the most popular feeds:
- http://www.wired.com/news_drop/netcenter/netcenter.rdf
- http://boingboing.net/rss.xml
- http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot
- http://feeds.gawker.com/gizmodo/full
- http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/topstories
- http://www.engadget.com/rss.xml
- http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/entertainment
- http://feeds.huffingtonpost.com/HP/MostPopular
Start Pulling Articles from Feeds
- Click on add campaign inside the WP-o-Matic plugin
- Add a Title probably should be the name of the feed?
- Click the Feeds tab and cut and paste the url for the chosen feed
- Click the Categories tab and chose the category to associate the feed with
- Use the Rewrite options if you’d like?
- Under the Options tab set a custom template if you want?
- Set your Frequency to 15 minutes
- Leave everything as it is but make sure Post title links to source, is left unchecked
- Click Submit and your done
Now What Happens?
Now every time your chosen feeds post new content, new content is posted on your blog. I think the revenue you are able to generate, is going to be heavily dependent on your domain name. So pick a good one and have it relate to the feeds you are pulling from.
How to Get Articles from Any Page
There is a tool at Feedity.com, that will turn any page into a feed. They have a free and pay plans at Feedity. The only difference lies in how often the feeds are updated and the number of feeds you can follow. I’m going to assume your using the free version. Here is how to create the new feed with Feedity:
- Go to Feedity.com and set up a free account
- I’m pulling every article with the term “dieting” in it from 212articles.com
- Go to 212articles.com and type dieting in the search field
- Copy the URL on the dieting page on 212articles.com
- Click Create New Feed on the Feedity website
- Click on Advanced Refine
I analyzed the code for the chosen page by clicking on View Source in my browser. Here is a sample of the code:
<div class=”Post”>
<div class=”PostHead”>
<h1><A href=’http://www.212articles.com/articles/11520/1/Dieting-For-Weight-Loss/Page1.html’>Dieting For Weight Loss</A>(Article)</h1>
</div>
<div class=”PostContent”>The most common reason that people cite for dieting today is weight loss While most of us would love to claim the noble mantle of dieting for health the vast majority of us are doing so for vanity</div>
</div><div class=”Post”>
I then pasted <div class=”PostHead”> into the area labeled Title Start, in Feedity. Because this HTML tag surrounded every title for every post.
Then I pasted <div class=”Post”> in the box labeled Block. This is the tag that surrounds both the title and the article description. Then click on Refine and the new feed is created for you.
Then you click on the Get Feed button after you chose an appropriate feed category.Feedity will provide a link to the new feed on the next page. It’s not wonderful, but it works?
Other Ways of Getting Feeds
Yahoo put out a service called Yahoo Pipes that allows you to pull information from sites. It is very interesting and I plan on covering it in a future article.
Yes There are Professional Feed Grabbers Better than WP-O-Matic
AutoBlogged is a professional feed grabber. It does pretty much everything you wish WP-o-Matic did:
- It cuts the ads out of the feeds
- It grabs additional content such as the article, video, images, etc.
- It is extremely easy to use
- If you want more info and a discount on AutoBlogged, click on the link below
Click here to visit AutoBlogged.
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