Welcome to Part Four of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS.
So far, here is what we have covered in this series:
In Part One of this article series, we provide an overview of the traffic automation process, and explain why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to begin bringing more traffic is publish great content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase of the traffic automation system. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part Three, we discuss the configuration phase of the traffic automation process.
Here, we configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part Three you will configure all the settings (hosting, internal and external) that can affect your website’s traffic-getting ability)
In this section of the series, we will show you how to set up various WordPress plugins that can help drive visitors automatically to your site.
Why Automating The Traffic Generation Makes Sense
Depending on which marketing gurus you get your advice from, you could end up trying to spend a couple of hours or more per day promoting your business on social media, as well as running your business, creating content and managing your online presence.
Most businesses simply lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts recommend doing. If you spend most of your time posting updates on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook in addition to writing articles for your website or blog, how can anything in your business get done?
(Keeping their business running is how most small businesses spend their time. Image source: NFIB)
Small businesses spend most of their working hours simply keeping their businesses up and running. In addition to running a business, there’s also sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to remain competitive and make sales in order to survive.
A study of small businesses conducted by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- 43% of all businesses surveyed spent six or more hours each week on social media (the other half of businesses surveyed that used social media spent even more time – between 6 and 21+ hours per week). This usage of social media was a 66% increase from the previous year, so if the same survey was done today, the figures would probably be significantly higher.
- More than half of all small businesses surveyed spent 1-3 hours or more to create a blog post.
- Finding and posting content for social media was their most time-consuming online activity.
(Small businesses are spending more time marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic source: VerticalResponse)
As small businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time on online marketing in order to compete and survive, this leaves even less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other areas …
(Businesses with limited time, resources, and marketing budgets and many business areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
Another important thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time social sites, all of your efforts are going into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. These sites can and will make decisions that affect your business without consulting you. Why invest so much effort and time building a business on rented real estate? With WordPress, you can have complete control of your own real estate and distribute your content automatically to other online accounts.
Investing in automation to leverage time and increase productivity is nothing new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it ever since the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the exponential growth marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for business owners, especially for those with limited time, resources, and marketing budgets. For example:
- Which of these marketing channels should you focus more of your efforts, time, and your budget on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.) while ignoring the benefits of building content on your own website?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to promote and market your business on?
The Benefits Of Automating Your Traffic-Getting Process With WordPress
What I’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective strategy that lets you automate the traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this formula, you will be able to:
- Save time creating web content and social media,
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary web marketing costs,
- Determine which marketing channels you should focus more of your time, efforts, and budget on,
- Invest most of your time and efforts building your own asset and still benefit from other people’s marketing channels.
Many automated web traffic solutions tend to focus on black hat methods, such as manipulating search engine results. This is not what the focus of this article series is about. In fact, we urge you to avoid using black hat sites, solutions, methods, and anything that violates the terms of service and policies of sites like LinkedIn, Google, Facebook, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not require the use of black hat methods!)
The purpose of this article is not to manipulate web services or flaunt their terms of service, but to show you how to be smart with your resources and automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and marketing efforts, and increase your exposure online to websites that your target audience frequents.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
As we’ve just seen in the previous section, most business owners lack the time, human resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts advise. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited resources, budget, and time.
So, instead of choosing this approach, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to different channels is extremely time-consuming!)
Why not choose this one instead …
(Set up an automated content distribution, lead and traffic generation, and sales and marketing system with WordPress)
With an expertly configured WordPress site, you can build more than just a website for your business … you can set up an automated traffic and lead generation and sales & marketing system, where all you do is publish your content and WordPress then automates the rest.
With WordPress, you can publish content once, and automate the distribution of your content to all other services.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social channels and bookmarking sites,
- Distribute content (and comments) automatically to other blogs and online properties using RSS
- Import content automatically (e.g. videos)
As your business evolves, you can add more functionality and automate processes like:
- Sell products and services with e-commerce,
- Capture leads with opt-in forms and add your subscribers to newsletters and autoresponders,
- Allow visitors to register on your site with different membership levels,
- And so much more!
You can do all of this using inexpensive WordPress plugins. Once these plugins are installed and configured on your site, just direct your visitors to the appropriate sections (e.g. your store, subscription forms, membership area, etc.)
How do you get all of this done?
Simple … first, set up your WordPress website as explained in Part Two. Then, get it configured as described in Part Three. After all this is in place, you then connect all of the dots using plugins such as the ones shown in the section below.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at a few plugins that can help to:
- Distribute content automatically to social sites and social bookmarking sites
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content via RSS to other sites
Jetpack WordPress Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and more as soon as you publish your content using a WordPress plugin like JetPack.
Download URL: https://jetpack.com/
Jetpack is a free WordPress plugin with loads of great functions.
After installing Jetpack, you will need to connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account (which you would have set up in Part 3.) …
(Make sure that Jetpack is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Activate the Publicize feature)
Configure this section to automatically share your posts on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and more …
(Share your posts on various social sites.)
After all account and plugin settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account details displays in the Publish section.)
Now, as soon as you publish a new post, it will automatically get shared online to every account you have set up …
(As soon as content is published, it will be automatically syndicated online.)
Jetpack provides you with an automated and hands-free way to get more exposure for your content online on social media websites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
WordPress has a built-in commenting function that lets your visitors engage with your web site, post new comments, reply to other users and participate in discussions.
You can enhance the WordPress native commenting feature using third-party plugins like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrate with social media, helping to spread and share them online.
For example, a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version) can help attract more comments and improve user engagement on your site. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social rewards like search-indexable backlinks, social enticements for sharing content, adding twitter names to comments, and ability to use keywords in the name. This plugin will visit the comment author’s site while they are typing their comment and retrieve their most recent blog posts, which they can include at the bottom of their comment after clicking submit.
(CommentLuv Premium version can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your website.)
To learn more about this handy plugin, visit the plugin site:
Social LinkMachine
(Social LinkMachine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
SocialLinkMachine is a plugin that lets you automatically syndicate content to over 30 social platforms, build backlinks, include relevant videos and images, and create 2nd-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – drip-feed content to many online sites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate your content to dozens of social platforms, such as:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Delicious, Diigo, Kippt, Reddit, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogs: e.g. Blog.com, Sett, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Google Plus, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- Document Sharing Platforms: e.g. Docdroid, Scribd, etc.
To learn more about using this handy plugin, go here: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (so you can get actionable information about your content marketing efforts), we have written a detailed article where we explore many social media measurement tools that will help you identify new business opportunities, track competitor activity, see what conversations are taking place online that affect your business,etc. For more information, go here:
The above are just a few examples of the many content distribution plugins that are available to WordPress users.
Kickstart Your WordPress Traffic System
After your traffic automation system has been set up, we recommend kickstarting the process of driving traffic to your site with the steps shown in this tutorial:
WordPress Traffic System: Automated Content Sharing Process – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site and plugins set up and configured, all you then have to do is publish great content on a consistent basis to automatically attract more traffic.
We have created a complete email series designed to help you never run out of content for your site:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize as much of the process as can be improved. This step is explained in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Four
To read more, click here:
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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