Day 5: WordPress Autoblog Plugin Selection

Today is the day that you actually take your first steps in implementing a network of automated blogs. If you have made it through the lessons this far, it is safe to assume that you must be interested in setting up multiple niche market blogs with the automated content populated by a WordPress autoblog plugin.

In previous lessons we discussed the value of these automated blog tools and how they will allow you to extend your reach by setting up blogs that automatically get updated with content on a consistent basis. As with any other technology you buy, there are a wide range of options to select from when you are looking at for an automated blog tool.

There is also a wide discrepancy in functionality that these products provide. I looked high and low for automated blog tools which provided a set of functionality that I predefined, and believe that I have been able to find every possible automated blog tool that exists today. The criteria that I wanted was:

• multiple content sources including article content and RSS feeds
• monetization content from multiple sources
• content that is search engine friendly and readable as standard html
• ability to mix and match content within a single blog post
• ability to mix and match monetization sources in one blog
• ability to set different schedules for content to be generated for each one of the keywords
• ability to randomize the timing of the posts on the scheduled day so that it leaves a small footprint for the search engines to see a pattern of automated content being generated
• easy to use and require very little effort to get started
• an unlimited license to use on multiple blogs
• not restricted to any pre-defined WordPress templates so I can use niche market templates
• not restricted on other WordPress plugins that I could use in the blog
• a forum of users to lean on for support, and a support team that responds to issues

So it was with this list of criteria that I started my search. Now the reason I did such an extensive search is because I was looking for an automated blog platform for my own business. I had played around with niche markets for several years using some eBay tools which have been profitable from the very beginning. I had been thinking about other niches that I wanted to target but I wanted something other than eBay content. So I started looking to see what type of new tools were available and did an extensive search on every angle possible to find these tools.

After several days of extensive searching, I was actually quite pleased with the number of tools that I found. The following is a list of several automated blog options that I feel are worth consideration, but there are probably other tools also available, so my apologies if I missed any that should have been included. I have also listed what I perceive to be the strengths and weaknesses of each, although I have more knowledge about some of them than I do the others:

• WP Mage – This is clearly the cadillac of the group, but you better have deep pockets and be willing to make a financial investment of well over $1000. I have not ever used this product but what I have been able to discover through my research is that it appears to be a very full featured product. However, in the WP Mage training videos that I discovered during my research, it also appears that WP Mage is quite complicated to use because of the many, many options that you have to consider. For me, I just could not afford to the take the chance with $1000+ to see if it might work. And the other important thing to consider, is that WP Mage is currently closed to new members. So even if I wanted to spend my money with them, it appears that I could not join.
• Autoblogged – This solution was a very close second for me because I like some of their content options. But unfortunately it does not offer any automated monetization features. Since monetization is such a critical aspect of an automated blog, there is no way I could give up that capability. It’s too bad, and I would hope they add monetization features in the future because the rest of their solution is very nice.
• Bloghatter – The simple truth is thanks to this incredible software program it has never been easier to create passive-income-producing blogs that contain images, relevant videos, high-quality content and much more!
• Blogorizer – This is a relatively new automated blog solution and bears watching. While Blogorizer has some limited functionality now, the product is designed by Brad Callen, one of the real heavyweights in the internet marketing industry. My bet is that Blogorizer will grow into a very robust product over the future releases we should expect to see.
• Datafeedr – NOW you can have your own affiliate store up and running today! In just minutes… you can choose from millions of products and hundreds of merchants. Turn ordinary datafeeds into extraordinary e-commerce stores. Watch the video NOW and see this powerful system in action! .
• PowerAutoblog Cash Generator – This product looks very good from the sales page, but there are just too many things I could not verify. One of my biggest concerns is how this solution handles the content – in other words, is it readable by the search engines. Also, the other concern was I could not determine where they pull their article content from – and as a reminder, an automated blog tool is only as good as the content it provides. In the end, there were just too many questions even though the price is lower than other options.
• WP AutoPoster – WP-AutoPoster is a simple-to-use WordPress plugin that allows you to ‘Drip Feed’ your content out over weeks, months, and even years! You can upload text files, PLR, even HTML to be posted randomly to your BLOG, exactly as a human would do it only BETTER!
• WordPress Autoblogger – This product also looks good, but I could say the same thing as I did about PowerAutoBlog above. There were just too many unknowns, and there doesn’t seem to be a community of users that I could find. Also, this one point scared me off – they provide a set of pre-defined templates with pre-installed plugins. While this approach may be good for the very beginner, I did not want an autoblog solution that I could not have control over the look and feel, the plugins, etc.
• WP Mixer – Are you getting stuck with crappy content in your blog? With this powerful tool, you will be able to get impressive contents in your blog automatically. WPMixer is a great way to automate your WordPress posts so you can focus your efforts on earning money with your blog. With dozens of features, WPMixer is a revolutionary auto blog software plugin and one of the most powerful plugins available for WordPress.
• WP Robot – I saved this one until the last for a reason – this is the WordPress autoblog plugin tool I decided to purchase as my automated blog tool. This product is very early in its development cycle yet and admittedly is still a little rough around the edges. But WP Robot has a couple of things going for it that I think will prove out to be the winner in this space:

  1. A very attractive price point that is based on which modules you want to purchase. They even have a free module that offers basic functionality. I decided to buy the “full elite” version because I want to have as much automated content as possible. If you purchase all modules, the total price is just $165 one time and this price provides an unlimited license to use on as many blogs as you wish.
  2. WP Robot presents the content in pure html, meaning that the pages look just like they would if you had hand coded and wrote the content yourself. This provides the capability for the search engines to crawl your site and treat it as unique content. I cannot over emphasize how important this is to your long term success as an automated blogger.

In the first few days of owning WP Robot, I set up a couple of new blogs, and added the plugin to a couple of existing blogs that I was struggling to write content. On a separate news blog that I have, I set up WP Robot to post hourly updates from several news sources through RSS feeds. I am already seeing better traffic results because my blog has more new, fresh and original content that my visitors can find through the search engines.

I realize that internet marketers get deluged daily with “can’t miss” offers, or products that will make you a gazillion dollars on autopilot. I’m not making those claims because I don’t know what niche you plan on pursuing. But I can tell you without a doubt that if you are looking for an automated blog tool that populates keyword relevant article and monetization content, WP Robot is a product you should look at more closely. I believe the people that jump on this product early will be able to dominate whatever niche they want to target.