Category: WordPress Business Strategies

Welcome to Part Five of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new visitors automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS.

So far, here is what we have covered in this series:

In Part One, we describe the traffic automation process, and explain why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …

(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to attract more web traffic is publish fresh content on a consistent basis!)

In Part Two, we focused on the setup phase. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing website was built with WordPress.

(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress site on your domain)

In Part 3, we focused on configuring the system. We explained how to configure all the settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …

(In Part 3 we explain how to configure all the settings that can affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically)

In Part 4, we discussed ways to automate the traffic-generation process using WordPress plugins.

(Publish once to WordPress and automate your content distribution to all other marketing channels!)

In this section of the WordPress web traffic automation blueprint series, we discuss ways to optimize traffic generation with different tools and methods.

WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Traffic Optimization Systems

In addition to getting your WordPress website or blog expertly configured, generating traffic successfully on a consistent basis is achieved by having a clear business vision, careful digital planning, and good systems and process in place.

(Optimizing traffic is the product of a business vision, sound planning, and great systems)

Let’s review briefly the systems that will help you grow and manage all traffic.

These include:

• Marketing Systems – How you drive new traffic to your business.
• Technical Systems – The systems used to ensure that your web presence remains operating efficiently for receiving new traffic.
• Business Systems – The systems used to manage and respond to traffic.

(Use systems to grow, automate, optimize, and manage your web traffic)

Let’s briefly review how important these systems are:

Marketing Systems

Your marketing systems consist of the processes and strategies used to create new traffic for your business. Your online marketing systems can be tested by asking questions such as:

• What is your online marketing strategy?
• How will you apply your budget and resources to these channels?
• Who will create your content, sales funnels, and run your marketing campaigns?
• How will you test and measure the cost-effectiveness of your marketing campaigns?

During the setup and configuration phase, you should have installed an analytics program (e.g. Google Analytics). If you’re just starting out, you may want to consider investing in some paid advertising (e.g. pay-per-click ads) to help generate some initial data, such as the keywords people are searching online to find your website, which you can use to create content better targeted to your audience’s needs.

Technical Systems

Your technical systems and processes ensure that your web presence remains up and running for receiving traffic. There’s no point driving traffic to your site if your site is experiencing problems or your web pages are taking a very long time to load.

Your systems include handling technical areas like webhosting, website maintenance and support, installing and updating new applications (e.g. plugins), customization, integration, troubleshooting, etc.

You can test your technical systems by questions such as:

• Who looks after my server?
• Who looks after my website and keeps my site maintained and up-to-date?
• Who will fix errors, troubleshoot problems, provide technical support and advice, etc. should things go wrong?

Many potential issues can be minimized if your website planning and setup and configuration phases have been done correctly. As with all technology, however, you can expect new problems to arise. Your technical systems need to be robust enough to handle these.

Business Systems

Your business systems and processes help you manage and respond to traffic. These include:

• Communication systems
• Resources management – human, financial
• Handling sales enquiries
• Order fulfillment
• Customer training/service
• etc.

If you intend to outsource your digital marketing and technical support, then make sure you also implement good systems to manage all outsourcing.

WordPress Web Traffic System – Traffic Optimization

With clear business objectives and great systems in place, all you need to focus on are ways to grow and optimize your “traffic loop”.

Let’s walk through an example of how to implement, optimize, and further automate a traffic loop. Take a look at the illustration below …

(WordPress can help you implement, optimize, and automate your traffic loop)

Increase Reach & Visibility Online

Step 1 of the process is to expose your business to as many members of your target audience as your resources will allow.

Tips

• Your expertly configured WordPress site allows you to automatically distribute your content to sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. The easiest way to increase your reach and visibility online, therefore, is to simply publish more content through your expertly configured WordPress site.
• As mentioned earlier, investing in some paid advertising can help generate some initial data, which you can use to create web content targeted specifically to your audience.
• Repurpose your content to leverage the power and reach of different media formats.
• Continue learning about ways to increase traffic using methods like LinkedIn, YouTube, Reddit, etc.

Plugins, Tools, And Strategies

We’ve already covered many useful tools, plugins, and methods in previous sections of this article series.

Also, contact us to learn more about plugins that let you easily add the following to your website:

• Share your comments and posts online,
• Run contests, offer discounts/downloads for shares/likes,
• Display user generated content, feeds, etc.
• Distribute content online in various media formats (e.g. videos, PDF guides, audio, etc.)

Build Authority And Credibility

Getting more content published is a great first step, but to make this activity more effective, your content needs to build authority and credibility with your audience.

Publishing better quality content improves your chances of getting more people to link to it and share it around and hence more traffic.

Useful Tips & Ideas

• Create and publish content that adds value to potential users and that showcases your expertise. This includes content that informs and educates readers, training content, user reviews, adding testimonials, etc.
• Consider publishing instructional PDF guides or special reports that you can sell or distribute online (e.g. sell on Clickbank.

Tools & Methods

If you need great content ideas for your site, we recommend subscribing to our FREE email training course on content marketing here:

Also, look for plugins that allow you to easily add the following to your WordPress site:

• Legal Pages
• Testimonials
• Customer Support (e.g. Helpdesk, Live Chat, etc.)
• Ratings
• User Reviews
• Badges/Certificates Of Recognition

Grow Influence & Engagement

As your business grows, you may want to consider developing “traffic on demand.” You can do this by building a list or starting your own online community or social network.

With “Traffic On Demand,” most of your traffic will come from customers or subscribers – people who already like you and trust you. Your influence and credibility can be used to generate traffic with every blog post you publish, forum post you add, or email you send out.

Useful Tips & Ideas

• Encourage visitors to leave comments and start discussions on your site.
• Add an autoresponder newsletter and encourage people to subscribe.
• Add a free or paid membership site, online forum, or social community.
• Create or join a Facebook/LinkedIn Group.

Tools, Plugins, And Methods

Many solutions and WordPress plugins are available that can help grow your influence and improve engagement. For example:

• Autoresponders/Email Newsletters (e.g. Aweber, GetResponse, etc.)
• Contact Forms, Live Chat
• Forums and Discussion Groups (e.g. bbPress, BuddyPress)
• Polls & Surveys
• Webinars (e.g. Webinar JEO)
• Comment sharing
• Add media, image galleries, etc.

Identify Problems And Provide Solutions

If you take advantage of incoming traffic to find out what users are searching for, you should have no problem developing new services, products, and solutions, all of which provide new opportunities to generate additional web traffic.

Traffic Optimization Ideas

• Create an online training program.
• Consider publishing instructional PDF guides that can be sold or distributed online.
• Consider adding e-commerce to your site.

Tools, Plugins, & Methods

If you plan to provide solutions online (as opposed to just providing information), see other posts on this site to learn more about plugins that let you easily add the following to your site:

• Membership Site plugins (e.g. Wishlist Member, S2 Member, etc.)
• Learning Management Systems (e.g. Courseware)
• Event Registrations (e.g. EventEspresso)

Analyze Data & Feedback

The final step of the process is the collection and analysis of data. Learning to gather and interpret data from existing traffic lets you discover new ways to create content that can help you generate additional traffic.

You should have already installed an analytics tool (e.g. Google Analytics) on your site. Make sure you also learn how to interpret the data.

WordPress Traffic Automation System – Summary

All you have to do once you implement the above strategies is rinse and repeat, fine-tuning and refining your methods as you go to grow your traffic and improve your results.

In summary:

• Begin with an expertly configured WordPress site backed by solid marketing, technical and business systems,
• Implement a content marketing strategy (with some paid advertising to drive initial traffic and generate useful data) to increase your reach and visibility online,
• Add plugins, list-building strategies, and other solutions if required to build authority, trust, and credibility, and also to improve engagement with visitors,
• Promote any new solutions, products or services using your existing channels and strategies to generate additional streams of traffic,
• Analyse your data and your results, automate your processes wherever possible, and begin the cycle again.

Hopefully, now you have a blueprint that will help you automate and optimize the process of driving traffic to your web site and get better results online.

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