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III. Setting Up Your Blog (...)

c. Plugins and Settings

Plugins are free “add-ons” that allow you to customize your blog more easily. Indeed to make your blog update automatically you will need to download and set-up one of these plugins.

There are two plugins that you should install, WP-o-Matic and All in One SEO Pack.

To begin we will start with the All in One SEO pack as this will help search engine visibility which is important in attracting visitors. It optimises your blog and each post in the easiest manner possible.

If you are not already, go to your Wordpress admin page and click on the Plugins option on the left hand side.
http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/wp-admin/

Lets begin by doing a little housekeeping. The two plugins you have installed Aksimet and Hello Dolly are not needed. To delete them, click the small box by the side of their names and then click the drop down menu above them that reads Bulk Actions. Scroll down to Delete and then press the button to the right - Apply. You might have to deactivate Aksimet before you can delete it.

Under the plugins option on the left hand side you should see an Add New option. Click this and a page will come up with a search box. In this search box type the word seo and click search plugins.

The All in One SEO Pack is the one we want to install so click the install option on the right hand side. There will be a short loading period and then the screen below should pop up. When it does click on the red Install Now button.

The installation will then be complete. Now you will see the page below. You want to click the Activate Plugin option.

You will be then taken back to the plugin page. Underneath the Manage Plugins title you should now see a red warning box which says that the All in One SEO Pack must be configured. To begin this process click the red link “Go to the admin page…”

There are many options on this page but it is only the first handful we are interested in. You do not need to make a donation to use this plugin but you can if you want to. Firstly you want to switch the Plugin Status to Enabled.

The next three boxes allow you to advertise what your website is about. The Home Title is the name of your website. The Home Description is a short description of your website. Home Keywords is a list of words which describe the content of your website. You can fill in all these as you wish, here is my own example.

Once you have filled in these options scroll to the bottom and click the Update Options button. You are now finished with the All in One SEO Pack.

Before we begin the installation of the next plugin, WP-o-Matic there are a few detours we need to make.

To begin with click Posts on the left hand menu and once this opens up click on Categories.

Add a new category by typing in the category name Hypnosis and then hypnosis as the category slug. Once you have done this click the Add Category underneath. When this task has been completed you should see the new Hypnosis category on the right hand side.

While we are in the Posts click on Edit underneath it to see a list of current posts. You should have one called “Hello world!”, you should delete this as it is not related to the idea of the blog we are setting up. Now we are ready to move onto Settings.

On the left hand side of the page, at the very bottom of the menu you should see an option that says Settings. Click this to open up the General Settings options. All you have to chance is the first two options, Blog Title and Tagline. The Blog Title is the name of your blog while the Tagline is a short summation of what your blog is about. Below you can see how I set mine.

Once you have added your own Title and Tagline scroll down and click the blue Save Changes button.
The last thing we need to do before we install WP-o-Matic is the alter the permalink structure. What this does is to change the structure of your website address to best optimize it for search engines. To do this look under the Settings menu and click on Permalinks. When you have done this you should see a list of options like the image below.

You should click the Custom Structure option and type in the coding below:
/%category%/%postname%/

This means that if you get an article entitled How Hypnosis Works the address will be http://www.yourwebsitename.com/hypnosis/how-hypnosis-works which is much more preferable to search engines such as Google than the default setting. Once you have typed in the coding click the Save Changes option and you are done!

We are now ready to install WP-o-Matic. So go back to the Plugins section and click Install Plugins in the top right hand of the page. You will now be given a search box so type in WP-o-Matic.

The first search result should be the one below. To begin the installation procedure click Install on the right hand side of the description.

There will be a short loading period then a new page will pop up. Do not worry if you are given the warning below, the plugin will still work. Click on the red Install Now button on the right hand side.

After a successful installation you should receive the message in the image below. Once you see this click Activate Plugin.

Now head further down the Settings list to WP-o-Matic.
For now you can just click next for the next four screens without paying attention until you are at the WP-o-Matic dashboard.

On the dashboard menu click on the Add campaign option.

Under the basic tab you are asked to include a title. It doesn’t really matter what you choose but something like Hypnosis RSS would be appropriate. Once you have done this click on the Feeds tab.

You will be now asked to add a number of Feed URLs. Here you have two options.
 

Option 1
This is the simple option as it contains just one address to add. However the disadvantage is that search engines such as Google tend to prefer blogs which take their content from a variety of sources. If this is what you want to do enter the address below and then move on to the Categories tab.
http://www.hypnosis-knowledge.com/feed/

Option 2
This option takes slightly more work as there are four addresses to add but this will be looked on more favorably by search engines which means more potential visitors, which in turn means more money. When you have typed in these addresses you can then click on the Categories tab.

http://www.fullhypnosis.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
http://www.thehypnobustersblog.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
http://www.hypnobusters.com/hypnobusters.rss
http://www.hypnosisarticlesdirectory.com/rss.php?rss=0
http://www.nlphypnosissecrets.com/feed/

NOTE: Only use one of these options, otherwise you will get two lots of the same content.

In the Categories section click on the Hypnosis option and you can then move onto the Options section.

Tick the small box to the right of Custom post template. You will then have to add the coding below. This coding does two things. It promotes your affiliate links (making you money) and sources the original article (keeping you in good stead with search engines).

<a href="/UNDERGROUND HYPNOSIS AFFILIATE LINK">Want to learn hypnosis at home? This is the course you need!</a><br><br>
{content}
<br><br>Source: <a href="/{permalink}">{title}</a>
<br><br><a href="/HYPNOBUSTERS AFFILIATE LINK">Looking for Hypnosis MP3s? Visit HypnoBusters for high quality, low cost hypnotherapy.</a>

You can copy the above code by highlighting it with your mouse and pressing Ctrl+C, you can then paste the code by pressing Ctrl+V.
While you are here also change the Frequency from 1d 5h 0 to 0d 0h 5m and then click Submit.

While still in the WP-o-Matic dashboard click the Options link on the left hand side. You might see a red warning box but it is nothing to worry about. You can just ignore it. Instead you should copy the web address underneath the WebCron-ready URL.

With this address copied you need to go back to your websites control panel.

http://www.YOURWEBSITE.com/cpanel

Scroll right to the bottom and under the Advanced box is the Cron jobs option - click this. Even though it’s under advanced this is actually really simple. A cron job is simply a command that is run automatically at certain predetermined times. In this case it is used to check the RSS feeds you entered earlier and then post the data on your blog.

You will then be asked your experience level - choose Standard. Once in the Cron Manager you will see a box where you are asked to enter an email address. This is not required and I would recommend not doing it, as you will receive an email every time a cron job runs. Since we will be running cron nearly one hundred times a day you can see why this is not advisable.

Underneath is Entry 1. In the box to the right of Command to run is an empty box. Here is the box where you need to paste the Webcron-ready URL you copied earlier. When you have done this, click on the box and type in the word curl and then leave a space between curl and your Webcron-ready URL.

You can see from my example as well as the image below what this should look like.
curl_http://www.hypnosis-knowledge.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cron.php?code=479ff3ce

I would recommend setting the timing of Entry 1 to those that you see above. This means that the cron will check the RSS feeds every five minutes every day for the latest content. I tend to add one or two new pieces of content a day to the RSS feeds in total each day.

Click Save Crontab and you are done!

Congratulations you are now the owner of a fully automated blog! If you have completed this guide thus far in one sitting I commend your effort. Now may be a good time to take a little break before we delve deeper into further plugins that will improve your blog for visitors and help make it more user friendly and popular.

Note: Your blog should start picking up new content within 24 hours. If you want to fill your blog with a bunch of content quickly you can go back to the WP-o-Matic settings in Wordpress. Within the Campaigns section under Actions you will see a Fetch option. Click this and your blog will import the last 40 posts from the RSS feed(s) you added.

After the initial use of Fetch I wouldn’t recommend using it again as it can cause some articles to be posted twice.

d. Further Plugins

By now you should be used to installing plugins so I won’t go through how to install the further plugins since you are now more than capable of working it out for yourself. I will however explain what they do and how you should set them.

You should go about installing the following plugins. I am giving you the exact names so make sure you don’t accidentally choose a similar but different named plugin.

• Add to Any: Share/Bookmark/Email Button - Adds a small button to the end of each post that makes it easy for visitors to share, bookmark or email a post they find interesting. It’s effectively free promotion.
• Auto-tags - Automates the content posting process even more by automatically adding tags based on the topic of your content.
• Google XML Sitemaps - Creates a sitemap for you that helps Google index your blog more quickly.
• Quick Page/Post Redirect - Can be used later on to help you make money by promoting your affiliate links.

The Add to Any: Share/Bookmark/Email Button only requires you to install and activate it. You won’t need to change any of the settings.

The Auto-tags plugin does require a little work. Once you have installed and activated it go down to the Settings menu and you should now see an Auto tags plugin choice. Click here and you should see the options below. Enter the number 2 into both boxes and then click Update Options.

Google XML Sitemaps requires more work than the previous two plugins. After you have installed and activated it go to your Settings menu again and click on XML-Sitemap.

Note: If you get the warning message shown below click on the privacy settings link as you want your blog to be visible to search engines.

You will be taken to the page below. Click on the top option to make your blog visible to everyone and click on Save Changes.

Once you have done that go back to the XML-Sitemap settings. Right at the top of the page you will see the box below telling you that a sitemap hasn’t been generate yet.

There is a message that reads “Click here to build it for the first time” - so click that link to let the sitemap be built.

After your sitemap has been generated you should see a message like the one below. If you receive an error such as the problem with Ask.com I received below you can ignore it. You will now need to copy your sitemap’s web address. It will be:
http://www.YOURWEBSITE.com/sitemap.xml

Now look at the left hand menu and click on Appearance, under this menus will be a link that says Footer. Click here to be taken to the page below.

You can delete all the content up until the copyright notice. Replace it with the coding below. Where it says YOURWEBSITE replace it with your actual website domain address. See the example above.

<a href=‘http://www.YOURWEBSITE.com/sitemap.xml’>Sitemap</a>

Once you have done this click Save Changes. You have now completed the Google XML Sitemaps settings.

Quick Page/Post Redirect only needs to be installed for now. There are no settings for it but we will be using it later to help your site make money.

Part I - Preparing

Part II - Setting Up Your Blog

Part IV - Cleaning Up Your Blog

Part V - Monetizing Your Blog

Part VI - Promoting Your Blog