Bisaya Bloggers

Free Automatic Blog Content Aggregators

So far, I’ve tried the following free automatic blog content aggregators:

Blogoverdrive

RSS2Anywhere

WP-O-Matic

Blogoverdrive showed a lot of promise initially.  Hey, 2 feeds a day is not bad at all.  It also allows for multiple accounts which is also cool.  However as I started monitoring the incoming supposedly automated feeds, a lot of those I set up for some free blogger accounts weren’t loading.  Of course I may have done something wrong but if it loaded initially, then why the failure now?  Blogoverdrive may not be that robust after all.

RSS2Anywhere on the other hand was very easy to set-up and has very clear and easy to follow directions for setting up your auto feeds.  Unfortunately it doesn’t profess much love for Blogger.  Choosing Wordpress over it which is a bummer.  But the real downside with this one is it’s sitting on top of an adult site.  Of course unless you write adult material, you may not want to touch this one with a 10 foot pole.  Not worth the hassle I think.

Then I tried the famous Wordpress plug-in WP-o-matic.  A brilliant plug-in that requires brilliance as well if you want to make it work.  If you’re a regular Joe like me, your head will be spinning at the first mention of a ‘cron job’.  What in the world is a cron job? Still we’re in the information age and all things are just a google away.  I did a little background research, followed the not-so-helpful instructions, and was able to set-up my campaigns.  I had to go to Webcron.org(part of the instructions) though, a quite exasperating site that prefers French over English.  You’ll learn about this if you decide to use this plug-in in your WP blog.  Caveat–> self-hosted WP installations only.  Sorry folks.

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Automatic Content For Your Blog

If you’re anything like me, i.e. cheap but creative, you would be hauling your behind to blogoverdrive.com. It’s one of those sites that gives Google nightmares.

Blogoverdrive is one of those free and premium sites that offer the budget blogger a way to create his own blogging empire. Just add imagination and it can get you there. What it offers is a free service to automatically put content into any blog or website. More than that, it can also provide backlinks needed to increase rankings. With a little bit of preparatory work, it can provide the lazy blogger with a create and forget blog.

Content has always been a major concern for most bloggers. Unless you have an army of people working for you, chances are, you can only update your blog for so much. With Blogoverdrive, all you have to do is create a blog (I suggest Blogger), open up a free account at Blogoverdrive, list down all your keywords, the site you’d like to create a backlink to, specify the frequency of automated postings, and forget about it.

Blogoverdrive’s free account offers 60 articles in a month. If you want to use up all of that, it means your blog can have up to 2 articles a day. For most bloggers that’s more than they can ever hope for. That should take care of the search engines’ need for fresh content.

Contents are sourced from aRSS feeds all over the internet. Of course you can choose which feed you will take your content from. For paid accounts you can specify up to 5 feed sources. For free accounts you can only have 1. But again, 2 articles in a day?! And there’s no limit to how many free accounts you can create! Are you seeing the possibilities now?

I could tell you all the details of Blogoverdrive but I’m too lazy to put all of those things here. As to its application, you will have to think that one out for yourself.

Check it out–> BLOGOVERDRIVE.COM

Note: There are a lot of automatic content generators that are being sold in the internet these days. So far this is the only one I’ve come across that offers it for free. But if you’re a wordpress user, there is a plugin that allows you to do the same thing–> WP-O-MATIC. I have yet to try it though.

Also, please note that this is simply a guideline, an FYI if you will. However way you apply this is entirely up to you. If you get supercreative (read: foolish) and gets banned, you can only blame yourself.

Ta!

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Skating On Thin Google Adsense Ice

You’ve heard about Google Adsense right?  In fact some of you folks may be deriving your livelihood from that little thing.  You’ve read about a whole lot of literature on how to optimize your adsense revenues through one thing or another.  More often than not the things that you’ve read are very likely internet legit.  But what if you come across something that, although not entirely illegal, borders on the unethical– would you follow it?

I recently read this ebook on Google Adsense.  It’s an awesome book written by somebody who has clearly studied the ins and outs of adsense.  I must say that it’s a blackhatter’s treasure which consequently becomes Google’s nightmare.  The methods described in the book stretches the boundaries of ethics and should get the adventurer’s heart pounding.  I could go on and on about it but I figured it would be better if you just download it and read it yourself.

Here’s the link–>Adsense Blackhat Edition

Technorati Tags: Adsense Blackhat Edition, Adsense SEO, Blackhat, Google Adsense

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Free Offers– Buyer Beware

These days I get a lot of email from marketing types ‘giving away’ PLR articles for $0.00. PLR or Private Label Rights articles as the name suggests, are write-ups on certain topics that you can put on your website or blogs. Since these PLR’s are very specific articles focusing on a particular niche, these can be very beneficial to a site owner. Moreover, the sheer number of these articles being offered guarantees fresh content for a very long time. And since these are being offered for ‘free’, it becomes a no-brainer for those offered to take advantage of the email sender’s generosity.

Unless you are that naïve, offers like this should ALWAYS be taken with a grain of salt. There are very few people who would give away something for nothing out of the goodness of their hearts. One has to always be on the lookout for the ‘catch’ or the ‘hidden charges’. Accepting seemingly generous offers blindly may prove disastrous in the long run.

Case in point are the ‘free offers’ I received, the PLR offer for example. The email usually points to a single page website with a clear instruction to click on the download link and then put in the coupon code found in the email so that instead of the actual value that will be paid, you will get the products for $0.00 instead. So far this is ok. You get the 100% discount coupon code and a very clear instruction on how and where to use it.

When you click on the provided link, you are transported to the website extolling the benefits of the products offered and how it will take you to the promised land of top Google rankings and subsequent revenues. You click on the download link and indeed, there’s the space provided for the coupon code. When you put in the code and hit enter, instead of the actual value, it now displays $0.00 but this time it asks for your financial info; most of the time it will ask you whether to pay via PayPal or through your credit card. Since the amount to pay is $0.00, surely there’s no harm in putting in these information, right? Wrong! If you look closely at the new charge amount, there is another notation there. Although it says $0.00, directly below it, the charge says $xx.xx for every month thereafter unless cancelled.

This is the twist in the tale as they say. And if you’re too blinded by the $0.00 and didn’t look at it closely, you stand to lose $xx.xx at the very least. So the next time somebody knocks on your door bearing gifts, check under the hood, more often than not, it won’t be little red riding hood that you will see.

Technorati Tags: PLR, Private Label Rights

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The Cure For Blogging Burnout

Blogger Conversations

As my interest in updating this blog started to wane, I had the good fortune of talking to two fellow bloggers who so unselfishly shared their blogging experiences with me. Over cups of the usual overpriced coffee, we talked about our attempts at making money (in my case, not making money) online. Bloggista is very excited about a couple of products that he will be launching soon. I can’t be very specific about these products at the moment but once he’s released those, I will be one of his rahrah guys and will blog about them here. Ceblogger is unflappable as usual, but as we go back a long time, we exchanged a few war stories (before Bloggista joined us) which only served to remind both of us how mellowed we have become over time.

I must say that talking to these two outstanding bloggers have, in a way, reinvigorated my waning desire to regularly update my site. Bloggista’s enthusiasm is just contagious! This post is a testament to that.

Small World

Who would have thought that Bloggista would turn out to be an old mate? One that I haven’t seen for ages! I couldn’t believe my eyes when he approached our table and introduced himself. I didn’t realize that he’s into blogging as well and that he’s actually the guy behind that very catchy domain name. What was supposed to be a first time meet-up with him turned out to be a reunion instead.

Cure For Burnout

I believe that having a conversation with our fellow bloggers is a salve to the blogging burnout that eventually every blogger will experience—considering that blogging is such a solitary activity. Conversing live in a language that every party to the conversation understands is very refreshing, a far cry from dialogues with non-blogger friends whose jaws tend to drop when you mention words such as dofollow, or phrases like ‘link baiting’.

If you’re in the same situation as I am, and you feel the strains of a burnout creeping in your blogging psyche, I would suggest that you schedule a meet-up with some of your blogger friends. After all, we are still human beings, and as social animals we have a primal need to connect with other human beings.

Sure, we talk to our cyberfriends and blog visitors all the time, but if you pause and think about it, all our instant messages and tweets and comments– these activities are poor excuses for actual dialogues where you can exchange smiles (not smileys) and laughter(not just typing lol). Remember, communications over the internet will always and forever be, just a conversation between you and your computer.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Blogging Burnout, burnout

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The Cure For Blogging Burnout

Blogger Conversations

As my interest in updating this blog started to wane, I had the good fortune of talking to two fellow bloggers who so unselfishly shared their blogging experiences with me. Over cups of the usual overpriced coffee, we talked about our attempts at making money (in my case, not making money) online. Bloggista is very excited about a couple of products that he will be launching soon. I can’t be very specific about these products at the moment but once he’s released those, I will be one of his rahrah guys and will blog about them here. Ceblogger is unflappable as usual, but as we go back a long time, we exchanged a few war stories (before Bloggista joined us) which only served to remind both of us how mellowed we have become over time.

I must say that talking to these two outstanding bloggers have, in a way, reinvigorated my waning desire to regularly update my site. Bloggista’s enthusiasm is just contagious! This post is a testament to that.

Small World

Who would have thought that Bloggista would turn out to be an old mate?  One that I haven’t seen for ages!  I couldn’t believe my eyes when he approached our table and introduced himself.  I didn’t realize that he’s into blogging as well and that he’s actually the guy behind that very catchy domain name.  What was supposed to be a first time meet-up with him turned out to be a reunion instead.

Cure For Burnout

I believe that having a conversation with our fellow bloggers is a salve to the blogging burnout that eventually every blogger will experience—considering that blogging is such a solitary activity. Conversing live in a language that every party to the conversation understands is very refreshing, a far cry from dialogues with non-blogger friends whose jaws tend to drop when you mention words such as dofollow, or phrases like ‘link baiting’. 

If you’re in the same situation as I am, and you feel the strains of a burnout creeping in your blogging psyche, I would suggest that you schedule a meet-up with some of your blogger friends. After all, we are still human beings, and as social animals we have a primal need to connect with other human beings.

Sure, we talk to our cyberfriends and blog visitors all the time, but if you pause and think about it, all our instant messages and tweets and comments– these activities are poor excuses for actual dialogues where you can exchange smiles (not smileys) and laughter(not just typing lol). Remember, communications over the internet will always and forever be, just a conversation between you and your computer.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, burnout, meet-ups

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Me Linky Love You Long Time

I have followed my own advice.  This blog is now DoFollow, which means as a reward for your untiring commenting you’ll feel the love of a Dofollow link.  But not so fast, the link love plugin I’ve installed here is not your run of the mill plugin; this is Lucia’s Link Love plugin which means I can specify the number of comments you have to make first before your links becomes DoFollow.  I won’t say the exact number but it’s greater than one and less than 5.  Fair enough, yeah?

But again, according to my own advice, I have enabled comment moderation so that I will still have a say on whether you’re a spammer, or a hammer.  Bad rhyme.

So comment away folks take advantage of the linky goodness of this dofollow blog’s juices.  Don’t worry if you leave stupid comments.  I’ll be the judge of that.  I’m pretty tolerant though but those really obnoxious remarks will not see the light of day.

Cheers!

Technorati Tags: Darren Rowse, DoFollow, Link Love, Link Popularity, Lucia's Link Love, Promotion, Quotations, Relationships, Romance, Web Design and Development

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NoFollow, DoFollow, MarshMallow

Here’s me trying my hand at explaining the ramifications of these terms. First two words have something to do with comment links (you can argue that these two words may pertain to any link and you will be right, but in this case I am limiting my explanation to the links found in the comments area) while the last one goes well with hotdogs and bonfires and is generally considered delicious.

Ok, here we go.

Most blogging platforms are inherently NoFollow, which means that any link (usually author’s URL) included in a comment will not pass PageRank. I say most because I haven’t tried out all the blogging platforms out there. And even if I say “All” I could still be wrong. Either way I’m screwed. The relevance of not passing PageRank is that the link that you included in a comment that you made will not have any value as far as your PageRank is concerned.

We all know that backlinks are supposed to count as a vote of approval for your blog, however if that backlink is NoFollow, it’s like shooting blanks. Alright control your overactive imagination. Now what it doesn’t mean however is that search engines will not crawl these nofollow links, they will, and they’ll come a-knockin’ on your door, but that’s just it. Although these links are still counted as one of your backlinks, they’re just not that valuable.

DoFollow links on the other hand are the kind of links you want. Spiders crawl them and they’re considered an affirmative vote in your favor. So if you’re on a link building mission with the intent of skyrocketing your PageRank via a commenting strategy, you would be much better off seeking out those DoFollow blogs. Here’s a DoFollow community that you could join to get you started.

So You Want Your Blog To Be DoFollow Eh?

A bit of caution on this one. DoFollow blogs are easy target for spammers so I recommend that you enable comment moderation for you to sort out which ones to grant your precious Dofollow link. If you don’t have the stomach for this, better stick to nofollow. Still there’s a valid argument to be made for making your blog DoFollow. For one, it motivates your regular readers to comment which could result to a lovely discussion on your posts. Fair enough?

Now, if you use WordPress, you’re in luck. There are a lot of DoFollow plugins out there starting with this one.  Or if you want to make things a bit more manageable(remember my note on spamming? this is a good tool to mitigate that), you can use this one– this is an interesting plugin that only activates DoFollow for commenters after they’ve posted a number of comments. Very nice huh?

Now if you’re on blogspot, go switch to Wordpress!

Kidding. Actually here’s this tutorial for blogger’s beta template that you can use. It’s actually very easy to follow. Again, better turn on that comment moderation thing before you do this.

But What About CommentLuv?

What about it? It parses the visitors last blog post and that’s it. Unless the DoFollow plugin is installed(for Wordpress) or the nofollow tag is deleted(for Blogger), it’s still NoFollow.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Blogger, CommentLuv, DoFollow, Link Love, Matt Mullenweg, NoFollow, On the Web, PageRank, Search engine optimization, Weblogs, WordPress, Wordpress Plugin

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THE Wordpress SEO Guide

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I have written a while back on a free Wordpress seo ebook and how it is a very helpful tool for anybody that’s starting with Wordpress.   Here comes another definitive SEO guide to Wordpress, and I mean this is THE WORDPRESS SEO GUIDE.  But this time it does not come in an ebook.  It’s written as a very comprehensive article in Joost De Valk’s Yoast.com.

His SEO guide covers;

• Basic Technical Optimization
• Template Optimization
• Advanced Technical Optimization
• Altering Your Blog Structure For Higher Rankings
• Conversion Optimization
• Comment Optimization
• Offsite Blog Optimization

I got to hand it to the man, the things he discussed in his article really got me thinking and needless to say, I will be implementing a lot of what he mentioned in this blog.

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Ideas For Blog Posts

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Make Use Of The Google Reader Star Button

Sooner or later, everyone runs out of blogging ideas. Everyone hits that wall where try as you might nothing just comes out. Everyone has this moment, and everyone has their own way of dealing with it when the time comes. Let’s face it our brain is not something that we just turn on or off whenever we want those creative juices flowing. It needs constant nourishment otherwise you’ll be stuck with what you currently know.

In my case, I turn to other folks when I face a blank wall. This is why I think the RSS feeds is one of the best things to come out of the internet. I don’t have to go to each of the sites that I like to read their content. I can have them all in one place courtesy of their site’s rss feeds.

I use Google Reader for my daily feeds. Now the thing with the internet is that we can get drowned with all the information that is generated everyday! I have a hundred feeds I think in my reader, and everyday that I miss opening that Reader, I get buried in all the updates. Fortunately for me, Google Reader has a star button that I can use to identify which feeds are worth my second look. I don’t try and read all those feeds that come in my reader (it’s impossible!) but I do browse through them so I can star those that I find interesting.

These starred items then become my inspiration for my future blog posts. I do come up with original ideas every now and then, but there are a lot of stuff out there that needs to be highlighted as they are very useful and make life easier for everyone.

Your Blog Post’s Title Is The Key!

I know a lot of bloggers are like me, they rely on feed readers to catch up with what’s happening in the blogosphere and what emerging technologies or news is out there. So if you want your feed to be read and not just skimmed by people like me, then you have to ensure that the title of your post is gripping. I can’t over-emphasize that enough. The title has to catch the attention of your reader. This can mean the difference between being read, and being relegated to the sidelines; dumped with the rest of all the insignificant entries.

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One of the oft overlooked promotional tools in blogging is tagging.  Tags are word or phrases that you use to associate to your blog post.  An article on the Kizuna Satellite for example could be tagged with Kizuna Satellite, satellite internet, or plain Kizuna.  Sometimes folks can be quite lazy in tagging their posts so some smart guys came up with ways to make tagging blog posts easier.

If you’re a wordpress user, you’re in luck, there’s a wonderful plugin called Simple tags.  This is a really cool plug-in that will automatically suggest tags for your the blog post you just created.

If you’re with blogger, then it’s just too bad. Well, not really.  Zemanta is your solution for those tag suggestions.  I have been using Zemanta for a while now and has been satisfied with what it does.

One important tag that a blogger should always associate with their posts are Technorati Tags.  This allows your post to be categorized under Technorati.  You benefit from having Technorati tags in your posts via tag searches made in Technorati.  Here’s a very good discussion on Technorati Tags that I’ve read.

Again, if you’re a wordpress user, here’s a Technorati Tag plugin that makes life very easy.

For Blogger users, you may have to follow the instruction in the above linked discussion or, you could use this nifty service where you just type in the tags you want, click on the make code button, and then copy-and-paste the resulting code in you blog post.

The thing to remember really is to ensure that you don’t get crazy lazy and not put in any tag in your posts.  By so doing you miss out on one of the simple promotional tools out there.

Technorati Tags: Accessories, Blogger, Luggage, Shopping, Tag, Technorati, Travel, Zemanta

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I wasn’t able to update this blog as much as I wanted to because of some whatever reason. But now that I’ve finally gotten around to doing what’s supposed to be done, I came face to face with a rather daunting task for a wordpress newbie– modifying my free wordpress template so it won’t look like one of those cookie-cutter themes.

Because I used to be a Blogger fan boy (I think I still am except that I’ve migrated my blogs to wordpress), I am somewhat perplexed as to what to do first. Since I have a self-hosted wordpress installation, I had to deal with changing permissions and making sense out of all the wordpress .php files. I guess all that practice in modifying blogger templates did pay-off. Still I managed to make a decent (still not perfect) job I guess. Although, man, Internet Explorer likes to make a mess of things.

How I Came Up With My Gorgeous Wordpress Template

Let’s see, I started with a whole lot of searching in the internet for the template that would suit my needs perfectly. I wasn’t really sure what I want exactly but I know I want a widget-ready wordpress template, and it has to have 3 columns. I also wanted a template that would allow me to display ads in the sidebar, and something that’s adsense ready as well.

The good thing and the bad thing about Wordpress is that it has a lot of beautiful templates that are offered absolutely for free. It’s a good thing because you have a lot of choices but at the same time it’s a bad thing as well because without a clear template in mind, you could be overwhelmed by the choices in display.

After several days of searching for the perfect wordpress template, I finally stumbled on Dezzain Studio where I got to see the Timeline Theme for the first time. I was instantly drawn to the color combination and the features embedded in the theme. So I worked on putting all the necessary wordpress plugins and widgets and did a little template tweaking until I was satisfied. Now it still retains its proud form but somehow I’ve managed to insert a little of me here and there.

And then I came across this wordpress template collection at WPZoom. Holy guacamole, I may have to change my template again. Gah.

Next up, I’ll be compiling my ten best free wordpress templates.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Blogger, free beautiful wordpress templates, Mashable, On the Web, premium wordpress templates, Social network service, Template, Weblogs, WordPress, wordpress template modification

This free SEO eBook could not have come at a better time. I have recently migrated my free Blogger blog to Wordpress and I was anxious to do everything right the first time. Luckily I found a good Wordpress resource from the Search Engine Journal site. This resource is a FREE WORDPRESS SEO eBOOK authored by Mihaela Lica of http://ewriting.pamil-visions.com. I have been an avid subscriber of Search Engine Journal and have religiously read their articles everyday. I find most of their posts to be very helpful for bloggers.

The FREE SEO eBOOK is especially written for Wordpress although it can be adapted to apply to other blogging platforms as well. Although the SEO techniques described therein is very basic from the point of view of an SEO expert, to a newbie blogger like me, the techniques were very helpful. The FREE SEO eBOOK covers general topics from installing Wordpress to link building tips.

I especially liked the part where that very helpful Wordpress plugin, All-in-one SEO Pack was discussed. It’s very enlightening and made me realize the mistakes I’ve been doing all along.

I strongly suggest and recommend that you download and read the FREE WORDPRESS SEO EBOOK.

Man this is some work. I have read almost all the how to’s on painless beta blogger migrations to wordpress and I have to say this is excruciating work! Still after having finally done it, everything seems worth the hours spent in front of my computer. A lot of the experts agree on two things to do the migration but with usually the same goal/s in mind– ensuring that the previous links don’t get broken and all that google juice and pagerank will not go to waste.

In my previous free blog I have already cranked up the PR meter to PR4 and have managed to land in the first page of some very competitive keywords. The problem was I was using a free account. I really should have started with a dotcom from the very start. Had I done that, I wouldn’t have to go through all the research I did in order to migrate successfully.

But still, there is a silver lining in all of these. Had I started with a dotcom from the get go, I wouldn’t have learned about 301/302 redirects, .htaccess, and all those meta tags redirect methods that a lot of experts were betting their nuts on as surefire remedies to the pain of migration.

The first instructions I did consider was Techcounter’s instructions, but the loooongg queu of questions scared the heck out of me. Then there were a lot of others in between before I arrived at bloggerbloke’s site. At first I had it made with his very nifty .htaccess system. It really worked for him and I think for others too. Even I was convinced I had it down pat. I typed my redirected blog address and voila, I was taken to blogger’s redirect page and then eventually to this site. It’s all good, except that in bloggerbloke’s case, there’s none of that temporary blogger stop.

I was prepared to live with it until I clicked on some of the permalinks pointing to my own blog. It did the usual redirect and ended up with a 404 error. I kinda slipped back down to earth after that. I had to play my final ace. I tapped on the great Wordpress reserve for help. And there it was, the plug-in created by Sam Wong — the Blogger Redirector. I installed the template and removed the .htaccess code I pasted earlier. Everything worked real well after that. Including the permalinks.

I have already placed the noindex,nofollow meta in my old blog hoping that I won’t be penalized for duplicate content. I’ll also try to do a little 302 redirect so the search engines would know that I have moved to a new location and then later on will do the permanent 301 redirect.

Right now, my concern is how to get out of that blogger temporary stop when any of my link or my url is typed. I also have to work a little bit harder promoting this site. Also some of my internal links (of course they came with the migration) are still pointing to the old blog! I still have to see if there’s a quicker way of changing these internal links behaviour so they will recognize their new location. However I only have very few internal links to modify in case I decide to do everything manually.

It may take me a couple of weeks more to finally say that I have moved successfully and comfortably here in my self-hosted Wordpress. But I’m not really that worried. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

If you happen to be here and you have some questions about migration, shoot me a note, I may not be an expert yet but with all the internet literature I’ve read and the kinks I’ve encountered, I may just be able to offer a few insights.

Cheers!

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