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By Will Lee
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 centralised
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 programme 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 categorise 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 targetted
visitors and lots of targetted content means a lot of clicks
on
targetted 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 decoupling
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 targetted 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.
About The Author: Will Lee is the Internet Marketing Fool
(www.internetmarketingfool.com), sharing real life
Internet Marketing advice and product reviews. RSS to Blog
(www.rsstoblogg.com) is an automated blogging tool,
created by Michelle Timothy. United Articles
(www.unitedarticles.com) offers free syndicated
content.
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