How To Automate & Outsource PBN Management

Since reading it, I have deliberately structured systems into everything I build to make it very easy for my team to complete work to my exact specifications.

One area where this seems to be unique from my friends and SEO experts is in blog network management. Not only is this process systemised, it is also simplified for my VA’s.

Let me give you an example…

How does your site manager VA install plugins? Do they pick a few from the list you choose? Are they the same every time?

All my VA needs to do is to choose a random option between 1 and 10, it then automatically installs a set of plugins for them.

Not only does this eliminate the time of manually installing plugins, it allows me to be in full control over which plugins are installed.

In this free guide, we will be covering the systems and tools that I’m using in my networks to make it more manageable for myself and my team.

Skip all this hassle and rent links from my personal network. Details here.

The first tool is MainWP.

Out of the box, it is not great, but with a bit of customisation it allows improved security and systematic management for your team.

Before we cover the setup of this, let me show you the process of my team…

The site manager is given cPanel access to install WordPress using Softaculous. They are given notes on what they website will be about, the topic of the website, the site name, and the site description.

They will then install MainWP child plugin on the blog, and set it up with one of our MainWP network managers.

While inside the network manager, they will 1-click install one of ten pre-selected groups of plugins to the new blog.

After this, they will install a free theme for the blog. Before adding 2-3 pre-defined types of page content, and 2-3 types of post content.

These pages can vary from recommended links, to resources, about pages, contact pages, advertising enquiries, etc. The posts can range from top lists, to infographics, video posts, standard articles, and so on.

After this, I will create tasks for our writer which include the article title to eliminate time spent thinking. The writer will also receive the domain, blog description, and network name.

Once the writer has written all of the content, they can simply 1-click login to the relevant network manager, select the site they need to submit to, and publish the blog post as usual.

These posts are all scheduled to avoid going live at the same time.

On top of this, every day all the comments on our websites are removed to stop them stacking up and using hosting resources.

Every so often I login and activate our file editing blocker script, which prevents our themes/plugin files being edited if we were to get hacked, done in two clicks.

Contents

1 Does this vary from your process?
2 What about the footprints?
3 But that’s not all…
4 Let’s not leave you hanging though..
- 4.1 Download the PBN Worksheets

Does this vary from your process?

Here is the tools we use to do it…

1. MainWP Dashboard

This allows you to manage a network of websites using the child plugin.

2. MainWP Child Plugin

This connects the blog with the network manager/dashboard plugin for easy management

3. MainWP Code Snippets Extension

Create a new snippet with the information below to block people from using the plugin/theme editor in your blog. This means if you get hacked, they can’t insert hidden code/links in your scripts.

Snippet Name: Disable Admin File Edits
Snippet Description: Remove theme and plugin editing capabilities.
Select “This Code Snippet executes a function on the Child Site”

In the blue code editor area, enter:

<?php
define(‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT’, true);
?>

4. MainWP Favorites Extension

This allows you to upload favourite plugins and themes into your main dashboard, create favourite groups, and make easy 1-click installs.

5. MainWP Maintenance Extension

Set maintenance options to keep your databases clean and eliminate server resources (Read: save yourself specs and money on hosting).

6. Custom 1-Click Network Login Script

If you have multiple networks, for different clients or money sites, or different niches, this makes it easy for your team.

This is a custom script I wrote up, you can download it later in this article.

What about the footprints?

That is simple, you can solve that in a single switch…

Once you have done this, anyone that tries to visit the MainWP plugins area will receive a 404 error.

But that’s not all…

The above tools make it very easy to manage your WordPress blogs. However, You still need systems in place for your team to setup your blogs for you, publish articles to your network, and to keep track of your whole network.

Without custom solutions (which I use for some of this), the easiest way of doing this is by using different spreadsheets.

The four I recommend creating are:

Managing your full network – domains, hosting, blogs
PBN Posting Template – for your content writer
PBN Creation Template – for your site creator
Anchor Text Tracking – for each money or client site

This takes a lot of thought initially, but will overall make your life much easier. Let’s break down what needs to be in each of these spreadsheets…

Network Management

Domains Sheet
1. Registrar – rows containing registrar, and login details
2. Domain – column with domain name
3. Registrant Email – column, if a registrant email was needed for whois
4. Email Password – column containing password for registrant email
Hosting Sheet
1. Host – the domain / url of the hosting provider or client panel
2. Username – billing area login username
3. Password – billing area login password
4. Domains – list of all domains hosted there
5. Server – if available, name of server selected
6. Billing – billing details
Sites Sheet
1. Domain – the domain of your blog
2. cPanel Username – cpanel login for this domain
3. cPanel Password – cpanel login for this domain
4. WP Username
5. WP Password
6. Network – if you have multiple networks, enter the name
7. Topic – for future reference, topic of the blog
8. Notes – explain what the site is about, for future reference
9. Links – list of all domains this blog links to (I only list the domain once)

This spreadsheet is exclusively for your eyes. Be VERY careful how you protect it. Your team do notneed access to this document, it is purely for you.

PBN Posting Template

I do not use this myself as we have a custom project management system built, but this is the structure we use in our system.

Status – for reference
Blog – the domain of the pbn site
Network – if you have multiple networks, which one it is on
Blog Topic – topic of the pbn site
Blog Description – description of the pbn site
Anchor Text 1 – first anchor text to use
URL 1 – url for the first anchor text
Anchor Text 2 – second anchor text to use
URL 2 – url for the second anchor text
Article Title – title to use for post, makes their job easier and exactly what you want

Couple things you may be wondering here… We do a maximum of 2 links in a post. If the blog is niche relevant to the money site or client site, many times I will just leave the article title empty.

After filling in this document, I would immediately enter the information into the “Anchor Text Tracking Template”, as well as update the “Network Management” spreadsheet to include the domain as a link.

PBN Creation Template

Immediately upon purchasing a domain and setting it up with hosting, I will fill out this template for our site creator to complete.

We use Dropbox to share the file, as soon as they have completed it, the information is copy and pasted directly into the Network Management spreadsheet and deleted from dropbox.

This spreadsheet contains the following columns…

Status – for reference
Domain – the domain of the new blog
cPanel URL – the url to access cPanel
cPanel Username
cPanel Password
WP Username – for site creator to fill in
WP Password – for site creator to fill in
Site Name – for WP setup
Site Description – for WP setup
Network – if you have multiple networks, which one to put it on
Topic – for MainWP and future reference, topic of the blog
Notes – explain what the site is about, sometimes setup details

Anchor Text Tracking Template

Once again, I do not use this document as our custom system manages it. This is basically how our system does it though…

URL – row with the URL (page) that is being linked to
Anchor Text – column with the anchor text used
Site – column with the site (domain) used for each anchor text

You may also want a ratio of each anchor text to each URL/page, I rarely ever repeat anchor texts so this isn’t important.

Let’s not leave you hanging though..

So far I have introduced you to a number of cool systems you can create. Some of those…

Custom 1-Click Network Login Script
Network Management Spreadsheet
PBN Posting Template
PBN Creation Template
and the Anchor Text Tracking Template

Will all require quite a lot of effort on your behalf to put together, even if I’ve given you the exact blueprints to them. To make your life even easier, I am going to share the love and give you each of these for free.

Just enter your details below and I’ll send it to you…

Download the PBN Worksheets

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Your friend in building kickass blog networks,
– Daryl