First of all please note that both plugins have been created for a different purpose, so it is not really “right” to compare them to each other. WP Robot is for building automatic weblogs and WP Shopping Pages for adding an affiliate store to a blog. Both plugins complement each other and can be used together very well (that’s the way I intended it) – but of course don’t have to: Depending on your goals you might only need one of them. See the table below for a quick summary of the main features and differences between the two plugins:

Feel free to leave a comment if you have more questions.

Because of that you should be looking for…

• … Keywords that are not very competitive, meaning there are not too many sites out there targeting the keyword and thus it will be easier for your autoblog to rank well for it.
• … Keywords that at the same time get a good amount of searches regularly. Generally you should be only looking at keywords that get at least a few hundreds searches per day or otherwise it won’t be worth it to build an autoblog around that niche.

Those two are the most important characteristics of a good autoblogging topic, but there are more you should at least consider:

• Is there a product for the keyword? If there are products for your autoblogging niche you can earn additional revenue by using affiliate programs like eBay, Clickbank and Amazon.
• Is there enough content? You should check the sources WP Robot gets it content from to see if there is enough available for an autoblog. You can do that by searching for the keyword on Youtube, articlesbase.com, Yahoo Answers, etc
• Do you know something about the topic? Of course, you want to build an autoblog, so this is no requirement, still it can help if you know a little bit about the topic yourself so you can for example sprinkle in some unique content as I have recommended here.

Generally autoblogging keywords which fulfill those requirements are so called long-tail keywords, which simply means multi-phrase seach queries instead of single words. For example “list of low interest credit cards” would be a long-tail keyword while “credit cards” is not. Why to target those probably makes sense to you: Since they are more specific the competition for them is of course much smaller than regular keywords.  Still, there are also many bad long-tail keywords around because the competition for them is either still too high to compete with an autoblog or because their search volume is simply too low.

So now we are back at the original question: How to find good long-tail keywords for autoblogging?

Generally you can find nearly all information you need by searching Google itself or using the free Google AdWords keyword tool. More specifically you should check the following:

1. Search the AdWords keyword tool for the search volume of your keyword.
2. Search Google for “allinanchor: keyword“. This shows you how many backlinks there are with exactly “keyword” as anchor text. The less the better of course. What is good depends a little on how much the keyword is searched for but generally I try to aim for keywords with less than a 100,000 results here.
3. Search Google for “allintitle: keyword“. Same like point 2, just with the page title this time. Again, you want keywords with a small number of results here.

Now, researching all this manually for many different keywords is very time consuming, which is why there are many different programs and services out there automating or simplifying this process. I would recomment you to look into one of these. They are usually not free but if used correctly you will make back your investment quickly.

The software I use for this is called Micro Niche Finder, which does a very good job in my opionion and is not that expensive as well. Basically you can input any general keyword and MNF will then return more specific long-tail keywords related to it and also allow you to show all the metrics I was talking about above.

When building many autoblogs how much time you need to set up each new blog from scratch is a very important factor. A good way to safe some times on the way is to pre-configure the options of WP Robot in order to prevent you from having to enter the same details for each autoblog. Editing the default options is actually quite simple, here is what you have to do:

1. Open the file mainstall.php (from your WPRobot folder) in a text editor.
2. Scroll to line 61. This is where the default options are specified, ordered by module. Each option consists of a line looking like this: add_option( ‘ma_eb_affkey’, ” ); Important is the part in the brackets: The first part is the name of the option (here ma_eb_affkey, which is the eBay affiliate ID) and the second part (here ” = empty) is the default value of the option.
3. Change the line 77 from add_option( ‘ma_eb_affkey’, ” ); to add_option( ‘ma_eb_affkey’, ‘youraffid’ );
4. Safe the file.

That’s it. After that change your eBay affiliate ID will now automatically be populated with the value you entered after installing WP Robot on a new blog. Of course you call also change the default values of all other options, some important ones are:

add_option(”ma_yap_appkey”,”");  -  Yahoo Application ID, line 86

add_option(’ma_aa_apikey’,”");  -  Amazon Affiliate Key, line 93
add_option(’ma_aa_secretkey’,”"); -  Amazon API Key, line 94
add_option(’ma_aa_skip’,”");  -  Amazon Secret Key, line 95

add_option(’ma_cb_affkey’,”);-  Clickbank Affiliate Key, line 105

Of course, be sure to only edit an option if you know for certain what it does and what you have to enter in the value field!

• Higher resale value: If you ever plan to sell one of the blogs you build having it on a .com domain will usually get you much more interest than a .info domain. And the difference you will earn from the sale will surely be higher than the $5 the .com domain was costing over the .info!
• Easier expanding: Say you autoblog becomes so successful you decide at some point to convert it into a “regular” website. If the blog is sitting on a .info domain now you are more or less stuck with it with all the disadvantages that go with it, like less type-in or direct traffic.

Many people also argue that Google is automatically devalueing .info sites because they are often used by spammers but I would not give too much on that argument as it makes no sense for Google to rank sites for their domain extension (i.e. over their content). Still, don`t make the mistake and try to safe money in the wrong place.

The program pays 35% commission on any sale of WP Robot refered by you. Go here for more information on the WP Robot affiliate program or sign up through this link directly.

1. You can now use {auction:x} (replace x with a number!) inside any other template option in order to insert x eBay auctions into every post, instead of just one like previously.  So if you add {auction:3} to the end of the Amazon module’s template option each Amazon product post will contain three eBay auctions at the end. You do need to have the eBay module installed for this to work.
2. Use {image:keyword} (”keyword” being any keyword of your choice) in your templates to add an image about keyword to your posts – instead of an image about the keyword the post was made for when you only use {image}. This can be especially useful if you have a niche site with very targeted keywords for which no images exist on Flickr. Say, there were no images on Flickr for “red dog collar” (can’t think of a good example right now). You could then use {image:dog} to simply display generic images of dogs in your posts. You do need to have the Flickr module installed for this to work.

Exception: RSS Module

Since the RSS module has no keywords associated with it, the MIX feature works slightly different for it:

• Using {image} won’t work. You have to use {image:keyword}
• Using {auction} or {auction:x} won’t work, you have to use {auction:keyword}

1. Amazon Template

This template incorporates all tags of the Amazon module plus 2 eBay auctions at the bottom to give visitors an alternative.

{thumbnail}
{features}
{description}

Price: {price}
Rating: {avgrating} ({noreviews} reviews)

{link}
Or have a look at these auctions on eBay:
{auction:2}

2. Article Template

An image added in at the top to spice up the content and two ebay auctions at the bottom of the article for monetization.

{image}
{article}
{authorbox}
{auction:2}

3. Yahoo Answers Template

A Flickr thumbnail to go with the question…

{image}
{question}

For the other modules I do mainly use the default templates.

Some general Tips:

• You can use the Wordpress <!–more–> tag in WP Robot to split up your posts. You could for example first display the Youtube thumbnail and description and have your visitors click the “more” link to see the video.
• You can also use tags and shortcode of 3rd party plugins in your templates. See this post for details.

1. Don’t overdo it! Don’t try to create a hugh autoblog about every possible topic with thousands of posts added to it. Generally those autoblog monsters will be marked as spam by Google quickly and not rank for any of their topics/keywords. Instead: Build small and targeted niche autoblogs around a number of popular long tail keywords. I have explained how to find good niches for autoblogging in a separate post.
2. Add some unique content. Some people might think this defeats the purpose of an autoblog as you have to actually work and write unique content. While this might be party true you have to remember that the number 1 goal of autoblogging is to appear as a valid website of good quality on your topic. Sprinkling unique content into your automatic blogs can help you with that, especially in the eyes of Google. And I am not even necesarily talking about writing full posts about your blog’s topic: Why not add a keyword-rich introductory paragraph to your template? Or a small “about” page? All that won’t take you much time but might improve the results of your autoblog by much.
3. Add value to your autoposts. This one goes hand in hand with the last point: Try to add value to your autoposts for your visitors wherever you can. An easy example would be a related posts plugin for Wordpress but there is much more you could do, for example parsing related RSS feeds, twitter content, etc. Be creative!
4. Mix as much different content as you can! I just told you about adding value to your autoblogs and aggregating content from different sources about one topic is actually already a form of doing that. This is probably why autoblogs with diverse content are generally doing much better than those that, say, just contain hundreds of Amazon product.
5. Promote your autoblogs. Many people seem to create automatic weblogs and then expect them to miracuosly become popular. That’s not how it works: Just like any website autoblogs have to be promoted in order to attract visitors.

Thats it for now. If you have any questions or more tips feel free to post them in the comments!

Important: If you enable link cloaking without editing the .htaccess file none of your affiliate links will work!

Please note you will need a little knowledge of how to modify and upload files on your webserver via FTP to make this work, which is why I only recommend using cloaking for advanced users!

Ok, that said, lets get started:

1. Enable link cloaking in the options.

This one is easy:  Go to your WP Robot options page, check “Cloak Affiliate Links” and save the options.

Links to Amazon, Ebay (except in RSS feeds) and Clickbank should now look something like this on your blog:  http://yourdomain.com/go/Link_Title/2021/1. Those links will not work yet though!

2. Insert Code into the .htaccess file

Wordpress can insert the necessary code into the .htaccess file itself as long as it is writeable (which it should be if you already set up permalink rules for your blog – which you should do!). To update the file go to “Settings” > “Permalinks” in your Wordpress admin area and just click on “Save Settings” (you don’t have to change anything on the page).

If it worked you will see this message and can continue with step 3:

If it didn’t work it is probably because your .htaccess file is not writeable. In that case you will also be told so by Wordpress on the “Permalinks” page. To fix that you can either set permission to make the .htaccess file writeable or use your FTP program to update the file yourself.

If you want to insert the code yourself, this is the full code that has to be on top of the .htaccess file:

# WP Robot Link Cloaking START
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^go/([^/]*)/([0-9]+)/([0-9]+)/?$ http://YOURDOMAIN.com/wp-content/plugins/WPRobot3/cloak.php?post_id=$2&link_num=$3&cloaked_url=$0 [L]
RewriteRule ^go/([^/]+)[/]?$ http://YOURDOMAIN.com/wp-content/plugins/WPRobot3/cloak.php?name=$1&cloaked_url=$0 [L]
</IfModule>
# WP Robot Link Cloaking END

Be sure to replace the YOURDOMAIN part with your actual domain name!

3. Move the WP Robot link cloaking rules to the top of the .htaccess file.

Wordpress can automatically insert the necessary redirection rules but unfortunatelly it can not automatically move them to the top of the .htaccess file – and that is where they need to be! So check your links now and if they do not work yet you will have to edit your .htaccess file and move the rules to the top. To do that follow the following steps:

• Download the .htaccess file to your computer with a FTP program. You can find the .htaccess file in your blogs main directory. See this link for more details on how to find your .htaccess file if necessary.
• Open the file with any text editor of your choice.
• Look for the lines that read “# WP Robot Link Cloaking START” and “# WP Robot Link Cloaking END” inside the file. Move those two lines with everything between them to the very top of the file. (If you can’t find the lines just insert the code you find in section 2 above into the file at the top.)
• Save your changes and upload the file to your weblog again via FTP. Make sure you overwrite and replace the old file!

Please Note:

• Affiliate links to Clickbank, eBay and Amazon will be cloaked in all posts on your blog, not only in posts created by WP Robot.

You can also combine the 3rd party tags with WP Robot’s built in template tags. I.e. you could use the {keyword} tag of WP Robot to enter the keyword of the specific post into the other pugin’s tag.