Beginner needs some help (autoblog)

daemmy · Jun 15, 2010

I created an autoblog (wprobot), but I am a total noob (tbh).
I am at hostgator and got myself the domain http://www.obama-power.com - that was a spontanious idea, but I doubt it was a smart idea coz it's not really a small niche.
I don't really know how to put the adsense code into the php-files myself so I used a plugin, but I have some trouble using it (tried several - well, it's my first time doing this after all). I don't think the adsense ads are well placed at the moment.
No photoshop skills, either - so I don't have a logo or anything.
I am using the 'white house theme' ('white house' and 'obama'

).
The blog and the domain are three days old .

So my first question: Does this blog have any chance? I mean, even if it were a lot better? Or is it a bad niche? Are the competitors way too big?

My second question: If it stands a chance (get more visitors, make some bucks), who would be willing to help me out a little? I'd give you full access (hoping that person is trustworthy). Most ppl would probably do it for money only so we could set a price.

My third question: If everything I've done so far is pure crap, what else could I do? (w/o having to have a lotta skills) Would someone here be willing to help me create a good autoblog?

thank you.

GreyWolf · Jun 15, 2010

Well it's a pretty saturated niche and your competitors are mostly the big guys, so yeah you've got a bit of a tough road. Not impossible though.

As far as the theme you chose? It's really not too bad for the topic you're dealing with. Definately need to get yourself a header graphic, but you don't need to be a graphic designer or photoshop guru for that. Just find something on the internet like obama in front of a waving flag with the whitehouse off in the background.

Pulling some feeds from amazon is actually a pretty good idea. At least I think so, others might disagree. The cool thing about that is you're potentially sending visitors to amazon to look at one book, but once they get there a cookie gets set and you'll get credit if they make any purchase at all. At least that's how it works if you're set up as an affiliate. Maybe you're just pulling a feed.

I think you're right that you don't have adsense set in good placement on the page. For a start you could place an ad block up at the top of your sidebar above the categories box. that will at least give you an adsense block above the fold.

Other than that you're going to need to do a lot of seo to get traffic. You could also try some direct site promotion by posting your link on the walls of FB groups and pages.

To get started with seo you should read Basic SEO practices for newbies and SEO - Understanding the Simulation. The two threads together will give you an Introduction to SEO. Once you've read them you'll have a better idea what else to search for.

daemmy · Jun 15, 2010

hi!
Thank you for your fast reply. The amazon links are affiliate links - at least they should be. I typed in the affiliate id in the wp robot settings.
So I should get a header graphic and place the ads better - like on the sidebar. I think I can add a header graphic in the them options.
I don't really know how to put the ads at the spots I want them to be at - I'll try googling a little later

.

Another question:
Instead of trying to make it popular myself, do you think it's a good idea to spend some money on the services provided here such as the following:
http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/buy-sell-services/191202-bhw-special-real-guaranteed-expired-domain-ptc-visitors-only-6-per-10000-a.html

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/buy-sell-services/129083-xrumer-super-search-engine-optimization-service.html

bizroot · Jun 15, 2010

You are looking to earn money through making your site popular... First thread is not of your use. Reason low quality traffic.

You can use 2nd option to make back links and that can help you in SERP...

Your site need better theme, logo, banner like stuff to make it more appealing..

GreyWolf · Jun 15, 2010

yeah definately don't buy traffic. If it was that easy then seo wouldn't exist, everyone would just buy the traffic. Those type of traffic packages are only to get your traffic stats up for reasons like watering down your ctr for affiliate and cpa programs. Purchased traffic like PPC campaigns with adwords, fb, yahoo and the like can convert but will be much more expensive and not really very well suited for your site.

Any seo services would probably be a good idea. The niche your in is going to need a lot of backlinks and it will be very timeconsuming to do it yourself. Bookmarking packages, profile backlinks, directory submissions, etc are usually fairly cheap and there are many people offing those services in the bst forums. Link wheels, link silos, and other more advanced seo techniques would also help, but are usually a bit more expensive.

I'd concentrate first on getting your onsite seo worked out first. Get the graphics header, set up better adsense placement, etc. and then start your off site seo once that is complete. Be sure to read the threads I posted for you.

MisterGemini · Jun 15, 2010

I am guessing you wanted to make it something about obamas power agenda? Perhaps right now it's a good time to start posting stuff about BP and what obama is doing about it. You will get tons of traffic fast. All you got to do is hit every single news paper and tv network and whatever you can find across the country and around the world for RSS feeds with your keywords, and aggrigate them!

daemmy · Jun 15, 2010

Okay, I've changed a few things. The design is simpler and not really any better, but it was a lot easier to put the adsense ads into it - the theme is called prosense. Unfortunately, I cannot get rid of the image ads ('stop obama' ads lol) even if I get the code for 'text ad only' at google adsense. Changing the settings to 'text only' didn't change anything either. Kinda annoying when there are three ads which are all the same.
There are no additional settings for the theme which bothers me. A friend of mine would do a header gaphic for me in a couple of days, but how would I insert it and how big does it have to be? That's what my header.php looks like:

Code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<head profile="http://gmpg.org/xfn/11">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="<?php bloginfo('html_type'); ?>; charset=<?php bloginfo('charset'); ?>" />

<title><?php if(is_home() || is_search()) { bloginfo('name'); echo ' - '; bloginfo('description'); } else { wp_title('') ;} ?></title>

<meta name="generator" content="WordPress <?php bloginfo('version'); ?>" /> <!-- leave this for stats -->

<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?>" type="text/css" media="screen" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>" />
<link rel="alternate" type="text/xml" title="RSS .92" href="<?php bloginfo('rss_url'); ?>" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom 0.3" href="<?php bloginfo('atom_url'); ?>" />
<link rel="pingback" href="<?php bloginfo('pingback_url'); ?>" />


<?php wp_get_archives('type=monthly&format=link'); ?>

<?php wp_head(); ?>
</head>
<body>

<div id="page">

<div id="header">
    
    
        <div id="header_left">
            <h1><a href="<?php echo get_settings('home'); ?>"><?php bloginfo('name'); ?></a></h1>
            <div class="description"><?php bloginfo('description'); ?></div>
        </div>
    
        <div id="header_right">
            <div id="subscribe">
                <a href="<?php bloginfo('rss_url'); ?>" title="Subscribe to RSS feed" rel="nofollow"><img src="<?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?>/images/rss-feed-icon.jpg" alt="Subscribe to RSS feed" /></a>
            </div>
        </div>
        <div style="clear:both;"></div>
    
    
</div>
<hr />

craigjarvis · Jun 15, 2010

One thing I would highly recommended is getting a twitter acct, and linking it to your blog. Also add the "follow me" link to the side of the plug. Both of these can be done with plug-ins, but I cannot remember the names right now.
My first autoblog made me about $3-5 per day and most of the visits were from twitter.

daemmy · Jun 15, 2010

okay, I will do that, thank you. I don't have a twitter account yet, and if I get one, I doubt I'll use it at all. Does it still make sense to get one, look for a plugin and add it to the sidebar?
The prosense theme seems to be a little older, too. I like it, but I really have no clue how to put a nice header graphic up there (if I had one).
So far, one person has clicked an ad of mine in three days - kinda frustrating.

Isendale · Jun 16, 2010

daemmy said:
I created an autoblog (wprobot), but I am a total noob (tbh).
I am at hostgator and got myself the domain www.obama-power.com - that was a spontanious idea, but I doubt it was a smart idea coz it's not really a small niche.
.

I'm a newbie at this myself so I'm still learning.

My most successful blogs to date have been about subjects that I personally am interested in and not those that I *think* others may like.

I made 25 blogs of all types to see which produced any income at all. In general, consumer product type blogs are superior in producing results.

I've found that it takes at least 6 weeks on average to see if a blog is a hit or miss.

Since I'm sure someone will ask, yes I'm making a few dollars a day total after 6 weeks of ABing, and it is slowly growing. This method is NOT a get rich quick way. I can see scaling this up over the next year and make some nice extra money though.

Beginner needs some help (autoblog)

daemmy

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GreyWolf

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daemmy

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bizroot

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GreyWolf

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MisterGemini

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daemmy

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craigjarvis

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daemmy

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Isendale

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