| Background
Search engines are particularly interested in websites with
constantly updated, relevant content. Websites that appear static without a supply of
fresh content may be viewed as dormant and in their drive to provide the latest, most
relevant search results to users, search engines may rank such a website lower than a
website that is updated regularly.
What Is It?
RSS to Blog Pro is a fully automated blog posting tool
offering self-updating websites.
It's a PHP script that is installed on a single web hosting
account. From this centralized installation, multiple blogs can be maintained with fresh
content from various sources. Also available is an earlier, non-pro version, which has the
same basic functionality, but requires a separate install for each blog it maintains.
What Problem Does It Solve?
Adding fresh - and importantly, relevant - content to
websites can be a resource consuming task. Either you spend time finding and creating new
content or you pay someone to do it for you. Without fresh content, your websites can
appear stagnant and drop off the search engines radar. This impacts your website rankings
in search results and ultimately has a detrimental effect on any free traffic coming from
the search engines. If your websites rely on search engine traffic then this can mean
their downfall.
What Are The Benefits?
RSS to Blog Pro tackles the problem of needing to
regularly update website content by automating the whole process from finding relevant
content based upon keywords that you provide through to posting content to your website
blog.
In the eyes of search engines, updating a website with
irrelevant content isn't nearly as good as having relevant content. The tighter your
niche, the better chances you have of ranking higher as you'll be competing with a smaller
number of websites. Using a scattergun approach to website content can mean you end up
competing with websites across a large number of niches.
If you're building content websites with the aim of earning
an AdSense income then you'll know that the ads shown are dependant upon the surrounding
content on your webpages. Irrelevant content results in ads that are irrelevant to your
website visitors, which means they'll have no interest in clicking on them and your
generated income will be poor.
Features
- Supports multiple blog types including WordPress, Blogger
Blogs, Movable Type, Type Pad, Live Journal and MSN Spaces.
- Keywords and RSS feeds can be specified for automatic
content generation or you can supply your own content.
- Posting to your blogs can be scheduled at random intervals
e.g. once or twice a day so that posting appears natural.
- There are no 'footprints' to identify the content as being
automatically generated.
- Log records are kept so you can see exactly what has been
posted and to where.
- Built-in ping functionality for blog and ping.
- A single installation will post to an unlimited number of
blogs.
- Regular updates.
- User support forum.
- Two tier affiliate program offering 40% commission to the
top level and 10% for any sales from affiliates you recruit.
My Experience With RSS to Blog Pro
Since August 2005, I've been using RSS to Blog Pro on an
increasing number of blogs in various niches. I'm pleased to be able to say that my income
from AdSense has increased month upon month since then. With the software installed on my
virtual private server (VPS), I currently manage around 50 blogs, posting relevant new
content every day or two. I'd recommend that you don't install RSS to Blog Pro onto a
shared server because if you're updating a large number of websites or you're running the
script frequently (every couple of minutes) then your host is likely to take a dim view on
it. Considering how inexpensive and how much more reliable a VPS is to operate there just
isn't any reasonable justification for risking a shared server. A VPS is like having your
own server, completely isolated from any other peoples websites so you can't affect them
and they can't affect you. There is the exception of disk IO, but that isn't something
that should be of any real concern.
The issue of relevancy is really what makes the difference
between an effective auto content generation tool and one that will never do anything for
your bottom line. I can't stress it enough; without relevant content, search engines won't
be able to categorize your niche and won't be able to rank you fairly amongst your peers.
That means you won't do well in searches in your subject area. It also could mean your
website will serve ads for tennis equipment when your niche is dog care. Visitors looking
for information about dog care are highly unlikely to be interested in tennis equipment
when they come to your website because it's not something which is relevant to their needs
at that time.
There's no doubt that this helps to keep those websites
looking fresh and my website stats show a constant stream of visits to my blog pages each
month. And of course, lots of targeted visitors and lots of targeted content means a lot
of clicks on targeted ads!
Support-wise, Michelle (creator of RSS to Blog Pro) has
answered my email queries promptly and there's an active user forum for peer support.
Michelle also visits the forum to provide assistance although some queries can take a
couple of days for a response, however the user base, support forum and software is mature
enough to be able to cope with almost every common question a new user might have.
Fortunately, the software is easy to install and set-up so
you can expect to be running within an hour or two.
One feature that I haven't used is the ability to ping blog
directories from within RSS to Blog Pro. The reason for this is that if I pinged these
websites for every post made to each of my blogs then I'd actually end up pinging up to 50
times a day from the same domain (the domain on which RSS to Blog Pro is installed).
Rather than risk being blacklisted for pinging too much and hogging the resources of the
directories, I use the ping facility from with my WordPress blog software instead so that
the individual pings come from the individual domains. Again, this will appear to be a lot
more natural and it also helps RSS to Blog Pro to work more efficiently by de-coupling
some of the work away from it.
Conclusion
After 6 months of constant usage, I'm pretty happy with RSS
to Blog Pro's performance. and would definitely recommend it to anyone who is wanting to
have self-updating websites that attract targeted traffic. Care needs to be taken when
selecting a host for the script, but once installed, operation of the script is simple and
reliable. An excellent script in the toolbox of AdSense earners and affiliate marketers
alike. |
