I talked about using the Postrunner Guest Posting system in my earlier Postrunner tutorial This time I want to talk about the other side of the coin – adding a WordPress blog into the system and becoming a recipient of others articles.
Why Would You Add a Blog to Postrunner
Have you ever stopped to wonder why sites such as EzineArticles will publish your article for free? Because they love you and really want to help you to promote your latest little acai berry weight loss site? Nope they do it because they make from it – a lot of money. Same as HubPages – they at least share some of the revenue – EzineArticles doesn’t. And neither do the Postrunner directories.
So from an owner’s point of view I am getting a ton of free content which is often focused around an easy (green) keyword – the keyword is often in the title. How hard would it be to get that article to rank for that keyword? Get search traffic and then I get people who will click on my ads.
How much have I made with my Postrunner sites to date (I have three in the system at the time of writing – one general, two niche). Nothing, nada, ziltch. None of them are monetized, yet. Will they ever be monetized – I have no idea to be honest. One particularly has some nice Adsense CPC payouts potential so its a candidate. Another one has potential with Amazon affiliate stuff.If someone is making money from an Article Directory or blog would love to hear your experience in the comments!
In the meanwhile I can use the sites for my own back links of course – well hidden within hundreds and hundreds of other links to sites I don’t own.
How many articles have I published on my site?
General site PR0 20 articles since the 26 March
Niche site PR2 – Finance 21 articles since 21 March
Niche site PR1 Home & Garden 18 articles since 7 April
How Do You Add a WordPress Blog to the System
You add the Postrunner Plugin (available in the member’s area) to your blog, follow the instructions upload it and activate it. When you set the settings makes sure if your site fits in an category other than “General” – that you put it in the specialised category. There are obviously far more blogs in “General” than anything else – so being different helps.
The site name will default to your site’s title but you will probably want to change it something more useful. The site name is the “elevator pitch” for your site – you have to peruade the article writer to chose your site and not another one!. I
f you site is very specialised e.g.. you have a health site but you only want articles on teeth whitening – say so otherwise you will be declining a lot of weight loss articles. The system will automatically pick up what PR that your site has – but if your article is otherwise useful ie. old, fast indexing or if you are doing active link building for the site – SAY SO! (Its called marketing BTW you are competing with over 700 active sites in the system).
How to Make Me Choose Your Postrunner Site to Post To
- Have a site which is regularly crawled by Google and which most recent posts are indexed. If you have not yet persuaded Google to setup camp on your site – active link building from other sources should get new posts indexed between Google bot visits. – I use site:postrunnerdirectory and then click the “show options and “latest ” to see recently indexed pages.
- Have a theme which gets my post on the front page and keeps it there for a while. Don’t have a static page on the front and expect me to be happy with just a title in the “Recent Articles” list – this just makes it harder to get my article indexed.
- A theme which posts only very small snippets or excerpts on the front page – without my link – I want my link on your front page so I can get Google following and noticing that link.
- A site which you only approve once a week but then you approve the 30 or so articles waiting so my article immediately falls off the front page – again I know I am going to have to do manual link building to get my article indexed *sigh*
- Bonus points if you take the trouble to do any of the following:
- add photos to photogenic posts (I use the photodropper plugin – it takes about 2sec to find and add a photo);
- add links between related posts (you can do this automatically using the “similar posts” plugins)
- have a editors pick or top posts lists that I might get my post into.
24 replies on “Keyword Academy – Postrunner Tutorial – Adding A Site”
Without looking into it I wondered if this was possible as I accept guest posts on my blog (now a PR4!) but people usually contact me through my contact form to do it, this would be more convenient to arrange.
I don’t see why not Rob – just specify what type of posts you are looking for – about Australia, independent not cruise travel that sort of thing
Sorry guys don’t know how the comments got closed – I upgraded Thesis and changed to chrome and I have some strange shite happening – only on this blog!
Great post written very inspiring and great to read about making more and more money online. Have a great readers hip.
lol, I got a bit of a shock when I noticed comments were off earlier
Can you (or anyone) recommend any good themes for a PR site? (one that looks nice, shows excerpts on the home page etc.) I’m thinking of adding a site into the system on an unused domain that I have, but don’t want to duplicate the themes I use on my money sites.
I have my main blog in the system, mainly to try it out, so far the quality of most guest posts was ok. What I like the most is that it takes work, time and emotions out of guest blogging. I rarely post more then a couple of times a week, so there is ample space for guest posts, as long as they add value for my readers. SY
That was one of the main reasons the system was built I think SY- Askimet hates you still BTW
And your comment form stopped auto-populating for me since your latest update, I have to re-enter my information every time I want to leave a comment, SY
*sigh* – Thesis’s days are numbered around here but I really haven’t got the time until next week!
I saw this one earlier and quite liked it 😉 http://articlesss.com/article-directory-wordpress-theme/ SY
Hi Lissie
I mentioned on a previous comment, I added my directory in Postrunner. I said I’m keeping an open mind but my issue is with its upkeep. At this time, I’m working hard to get Google love and I’ve written backlinks to half the articles submitted. To be honest, I’d rather be working on my niche sites.
I haven’t mentioned this at the TKA because I don’t want to poopoo on their parade but honestly, it’s in their best interest to get members to add sites so they can give a figure to big SEO clients. Postrunner is great for the link builder but I’m not sure if it’s good for the site owner.
Free content is a good sell but it doesn’t do much if you can’t do anything with it and it takes your time away from other things. That’s why newbies don’t make money, they are too distracted. On the other hand, I’d love for newbies to work on their Postrunner sites and backlink for me but I know in my heart it’s not a good strategy. Be honest now, how many people in the forum make money with niche sites vs supersites? A lot of people after starting those supersite frenzy now admit they should have started with niche sites so they can learn and grow out. And now add a general directory supersite to that? Good luck.
I was happy with my niche sites but now I’m obsessed with tweaking my general directory and making it look “pretty”, checking if things are indexed for OTHER people – things I usually roll my eyes in forum threads as useless activities.
Unless C&M can convince people that having a Postrunner site actually makes people money, I think the network might shrink which is a shame. I don’t mind having sites in there to help out because I really did get a lot out of Postrunner as a link builder but I wish being a site owner wasn’t marketed as a money maker for unsuspecting newbies (how many people made money after they let the first 50 GSP sites go?).
Hi “PR”. I have 3 directories in PostRunner – was a PR3 pre-owned (its now PR2) – it gets instant indexing, I have never built a link to it (though the previous owner had). I was curious to see if I could reproduce that effect with a new site. I added the new site general PR0 – I had put a handful of posts on it intending it as a farm last December, and never got back to it (as is my wont). I tossed it into Postrunner – but of course Google was hardly ever visiting and nothing was getting indexed. So for the last week or so I have written150 words and for link to each and every new post 23 in total. Each post was getting subsequently getting indexed within a day or so. I went to bed last night wondering how much longer I’d have to do it for. Late last night a post came in on a topic I actually knew something about (great that would be easy to write ), this morning I approved 2 more posts. Then I went to check to see what was indexed – I was surprised to see the late night post was indexed – nice – but could have been the owner building their own links. Then 2 hours later the next 2 posts were indexed. Google still hasn’t visited the site since 8 April – but obviously is busy enough following the links between the posts to suddenly decide the site deserves instant indexing.
So now I have two sites (including this one) where I know if I post I will be indexed – and I have total control over what I post and what I link to. If you don’t understand how powerful that is you are missing the point of link building and control of your links
As I said I don’t have personal experience of making money from directories but I know RJ @ Posturown articles and Dave @ The Best Article directory do – so maybe they will chip in as to why they bother to run article directories – and they both started outside the Postrunner system. And don’t think either of them are in the “feel good” business .
Even without direct money from the sites – building links are key to this business – and every single person I know who are successful have control of large number of support sites to provide links as they require. Once you have Google doing instant indexing on your site your only time commitment is hitting approve and checking the links linked out to. I may have just proven that this really only takes a few weeks of work so long as you have a constant flow of new content to the site– and Postrunner gives me that.
I agree that if someone is brand new – they don’t need a Postrunner site – they need to understand the process – once they do that and they go through the pain of submitting to places like EzineArticles they will appreciate the power that Postrunner brings.
Is it possible to use Postrunner to launch a site? I own a domain name which is for healthcare-related articles. I’d like to allow others to post there, and use it to create links for one of my web businesses later on. But I’m not sure anyone would be interested; it doesn’t rank because it doesn’t exist! Any thoughts? Thanks!
Pretty much that is what I’m doing. You need to get the site indexed before you connect to the system. Add 1/2 dozen or so posts – get a link or two from a high PR or active blog. Then add it in. People won’t worry about it not ranking but they do want to see posts getting indexed and some care being taken of the site (ie don’t use the default wordpress theme!) So you might have to do link building early on – as I mentioned in my comment above.
I see… Thanks! That helps a lot.
One more quick question, if I have two sites in the system they have to be on different ip addresses, correct? If I have them both in the same shared Hostgator account, is it enough to order a new ip address for one of them to comply with the requirements? SY
Double check with support but what they’ve said publicaly is that they have to be different hosting accounts rather than saying separate IPs I have several baby HG accounts and also one with QiQ which I got for 11p on special!
Hey Lis.
I run my site in order to provide myself with links where I can also make money from them and also to make a little bit from others articles via adsense, although with a 75% revenue share that is not massive.
It is a bit of work but the fact is that I own a site that gets indexed straight away and can provide backlinks and money. Where it will go in the future we will see. But one thing I have learnt is that at some point sites suddenly get a big green light and traffic jumps considerably. When this happens it will be a much better money maker.
I also don’t think it is the best use of a newbies time as they should be concentrating on earning some money. Much better to post to such sites and earn some adsense. But long term it is a good property to have as at some point they will earn a lot more revenue.
That or sell it 😉
I used the Photodropper plugin also (thanks for the tip Lis!) But suddenly, this morning it stopped working. It still finds images, but when I try to insert them noting happens. Any idea what the problem could be? SY
Thanks for the tip on the photodropper plug in. I spend hours looking for pics. Will check that out!
This comment is more in the way of a tip. Have a list of the various keyword phrases you are trying to rank for and than try to place different ones in the title of each of your blog posts.
Hi Lis,
Thanks for this post. Its given me food for thought. I have just joined KWA and was wondering if it was worth the $67 a month. Unless postrunner is worthwhile then I can’t see me continuing at that monthly rate.
Peter
Hello! I am loving this! Anyway, I have recently joined TKA and I love it too. I am going to add a site to the postrunner system very very soon. I think its a wonderful way for publishers to build links and for webmasters to gain free quality content. I was a bit confused at first with how it works but I think I get it now. I read somewhere something about hosting and if you have two sites going on there they have to be hosted in different places. Or was I reading wrong? I am confused about that part.
thanks!
No you have it right edina each of your postrunner accounts need to be on separate hosting accounts