AutoBlog
Once you have a solid content solution in place there are still plenty of configurations to be done. At the center of those configurations is your plugins.
There are tons of plugins out there to help you build an autoblog or blog farm. This is one of the key aspects that make Wordpress such an amazing platform. Before I show you a list of my favorite plugins try this exercise real quick.
Go to the Wordpress plugin directory and think of a function that you could build into a Wordpress blog.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
Got it? . . . Ok, I choose I wanted to attach a PDF file to a blog post. So I am going to search for “PDF”, now by searching that I didn’t instantly find a software that will allow me to attach PDF’s to a post but I did find some more really cool tools. I see that there is a way to convert post into PDF and several others.
The point is, between the Wordpress plugin library and Google you can make Wordpress do almost anything you want.
Now to my Wordpress plugin list . . .
With each blog that I set up, regardless if it’s an autoblog, blog farm or regular blog there is a core group of plugins that I use.
All of these Wordpress plugins can be obtained at no cost.
All IN One SEO
This is a great plugin that streamlines the basic SEO settings for a Wordpress blog. You can pre-define a Home Title, Description, and Keywords by using the control panel.
It doesn’t stop there, with a few clicks the titles of each post, page, category, archive, tag, or search page can be tweaked for maximum SEO effectiveness.
Google XML Sitemaps
Every web site needs a site map to tell organize the data for a search engine spider. Google XML Sitemaps is a great plugin to perform this task.
What makes this plugin great is that it doesn’t just stop with building a site map Google XML Sitemaps also has an array of options and services to notify of a change in your site map.
Privacy Policy Plugin
Google e now requires that all sites displaying Google Adsense must have a privacy policy. Since the primary purpose of an auto blog of blog farm is to deploy as many sites as possible (as fast as possible) we don’t want to spend any time actually writing a privacy policy for each site.
Here is a link to a great privacy policy plugin (you can’t find this in the Wordpress plugin directory as of now).
Here is a direct link for this plugin (download here)
Easy Contact
Easy Contact is the lazy mans way to a contact form. All you have to do is activate the plugin and place a simple [ easy-contact ] tag on your contact page and away you go.
By default it will route mail to the administrators email and it uses the anti-spam logic from Akismet. No other configuration is required.
**NOTE** you might not think you need a contact form on your autoblog, but I have actually earned big money by potential on site advertisers using a contact form to reach me.
The largest advertiser to-date to contact me via one of my autoblog’s is Discover Bank. J Go figure!
Feedburner
Now that Google has taken over Feedburner it makes it very easy to check the RSS stats of any blog you have. I highly recommend using a feedburner plugin so you can get an idea about your RSS stats.
PageMash
PageMash is just a really great plugin that makes life a lot easier when you are working with multiple pages. PageMash provides a drag and drop Ajax interface so you can move pages around with ease.
I use this plugin more than you know on almost any blog I build. The plugin is especially critical during the set up process.
RB Internal Links
We all know how important internal linking is to proper SEO efforts. RB Internal Links is an easy way to do it and make that process of SEO run on auto pilot. It also includes a TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor so you can quickly locate posts based on category and take care of the auto linking.
Robots Meta
One of the biggest mistakes with any websites SEO efforts is overlooking the robots Meta file. Robots Meta makes it very easy to route the search engine spider exactly where you want it to go. Imagine providing a funnel to the pages and sections of your web site.
Robots Meta can also prevent indexing duplicate content and indexing pages such as your login page / register page by adding the noindex tag.
Ultimate Google Analytics
When working with a blog farm or autoblog you for sure want to know the stats and what keywords you are being indexed for. UGA (Ultimate Google Analytics) will add the necessary java script code to each page of your Wordpress autoblog or blog farm with ease. Just enter in the ID number and click “save”.
Of course for the more advanced developers you will also have access to a ton of advanced options in the configuration screen.
All in One Adsense and YPN
Everyone wants an easy way to monetize their blog farm and autoblog. With the All in One Adsense and YPN plug-in you will have total control over ad position and several options that can enhance your ad serving. The plug-in ill automatically add your cost to every post and page that you position the ads on.
Wordpress.com Stats
You defiantly want to install this stats plug-in. Now, you might ask why you would need 2 different set of stats running (Google Analytics + Wordpress.com stats). The reason for running multiple analytics services are that each will have their own way of counting visitors. Google analytics often doesn’t count all visitors so it’s good to have a 2nd opinion.
Duplicate Posts Eraser
Since you will be using RSS scrappers, Content fetchers, and an array of automatic content fetching options you will want to make sure that you. Erase duplicate post. This handy little plug-in will ensure that each post on your blog is unique.
Different Post Per Page
If you are using the above plug-in, then this plug-in wont really apply. However some choose to have duplicate post thus increasing their chances that one post or article will get indexed by the search engines. The basic premises behind this plug-in is to place different post on the home page of your autoblog.
Onlywire Submitter (By Lunatic Studios)
Only wire is a gem when it comes to easing the task of social book marking. Lunatic studios takes a great idea and makes it better with their Only wire Submitter plug-in. With Onlywire submitter you can easily grab those Digg, Reddit, delicious and Mixx book marks with ease. Essentially what is does is increases your social book marking by a level of 100. This plug-in alone can drive 100’s of back links each day.
Simple Tags
If you choose to use Tag’s as the method of search engine indexing then Simple Tags can make your life much easier. Since you are going to be using a ton of automated methods to get your articles and content, then Simply Tags can also “spider” your content and automatically add tags to each post. So once you install this plug-in there is no need to manually create tags on each post.
Wordpress Related Posts
Relating post is yet another way to do internal linking inside of your own site. This is a great Wordpress plug-in for an autoblog or blog farm that can take care of dynamically assigning a related post (then inter linking) to that post. Wordpress Related Posts offers a few options such as how many related post to display.
Hey, great post. I never noticed a few of those wp-plugins and it will be great to bring them on and see how they do in my own efforts. Thanks for sharing and continue to do what you do!
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