Welcome to Part 4 of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to create an automated traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS.
So far, here is what we have covered in this series:
In Part 1, we explain why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to begin attracting web traffic is publish new content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we focused on the setup phase. We explained 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 has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part 3, we discuss the configuration phase.
In this step, we configure all the settings that affect your site’s traffic-getting ability …
(In Part Three we explain how to configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In Part 4, we look at ways to automate the traffic-generation process with different plugins.
Why Automate Your Traffic-Getting Process?
Depending on which online marketing guru you listen to, you could end up trying to spend an hour or two per day (or more) posting content on social media.
Many businesses simply lack the time, human resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts recommend. If you spent all of your time posting updates on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook in addition to researching and writing content for your blog or website, how would you get anything else in your business done?
(Keeping a business up and running is how most small businesses spend their working hours. Infographic: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Small business owners spend most of their time just 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 grow in order to survive.
Research conducted in 2012 by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- 43% of all small businesses surveyed spent around six hours per week on social media (the other half of businesses surveyed using social media spent even more time – between 6 and 21+ hours per week). This was a 66% increase from the previous year, so if the same survey was conducted today, the numbers would probably be even higher.
- More than half of all 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.
(Businesses are spending more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Image source: VerticalResponse.com)
As businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time marketing and promoting themselves online in order to compete and survive, this puts more and more pressure on businesses to focus their time on other vital areas …
(Businesses with limited marketing budget, resources, and time and many different business areas to focus on have to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
One other thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time promoting and marketing your business on a number of social websites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you have no control over. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest. These sites often will make decisions that affect your business without first consulting you. Why invest so much effort and time building content on someone else’s real estate? With a self-hosted WordPress site, you can have complete control of your own virtual real estate and publish your content automatically to other websites.
Investing in automation to save time and increase productivity is nothing new. Businesses have been doing it ever since the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the exponential growth channels for marketing and promoting a business creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners, especially for those with limited marketing budget, resources, and time. For example:
- Which of these marketing channels should you focus more of your budget, time, and your efforts on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) while neglecting 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 Web Traffic Generation With WordPress
What we’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective strategy that lets you automate the traffic generation with WordPress.
With this strategy, you will be able to:
- Save time creating content for your website and social media,
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary online marketing costs,
- Determine which channels you should invest more efforts, budget, and your time on,
- Invest most of your time building your own asset and still benefit from other people’s marketing channels.
Many automated 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, methods, software, and anything that violates the terms of service and policies of sites like Pinterest, Google, Facebook, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not have to involve the use of black hat techniques!)
What we are focusing here is not to manipulate online services or flaunt their terms of service, but to show you how to automate your content distribution in order to leverage your time and marketing efforts, and increase your exposure online to sites 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, many small businesses lack the time, human resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online experts advise. What you want to do, then, is work smart within your limited resources.
So, instead of using this approach …
(Posting content to services one by one is extremely time-consuming!)
Why not do this 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 once, and automate your content distribution to all other channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social services and social bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute comments and content 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 website or blog as shown in Part 2. Then, get everything configured as described in Part Three. After all this is in place, you can then automate various processes with plugins such as the ones discussed below.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Traffic Generation Plugins
Let’s take a look now at a few traffic-generation WordPress plugins that can help to:
- Distribute content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking sites
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Post content to other online properties via RSS feeds
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Google+ and more as soon as you publish your content using a plugin like JetPack.
Download URL: https://jetpack.com/
Jetpack is a free WordPress plugin with loads of useful features.
After installing Jetpack, you will need to connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account (which you would have set up in Part 3.) …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Jetpack plugin – Publicize feature)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and more …
(Distribute your content to several social networks.)
After configuring all plugin and account settings, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account details in the Publish box.)
Now, as soon as you publish new content, it will automatically be shared online to all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as new posts are published, they will be automatically distributed online.)
Jetpack provides you with an automated and hands-free way to get more exposure online for your content on social media websites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The WordPress native commenting system lets your visitors engage with your web site, post new comments, reply to existing comments and participate in discussions.
You can enhance the WordPress native commenting feature with a number of 3rd-party plugins like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrate your comments with social media, helping to share and spread them around.
For example, with a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version), you can create more user engagement on your web site. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social rewards like using keywords in the user name, search-indexable backlinks, social enticements for content sharing, and the ability to add twitter handles to comments. This plugin will visit the website or blog of the comment author while they enter their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which they can include below their comment after clicking submit.
(CommentLuv Premium version can help attract more comments and create more user engagement on your website.)
Visit the plugin website to learn more about the benefits of this handy plugin:
SocialLinkMachine
(Social LinkMachine – Set-and-forget content distribution plugin)
SocialLinkMachine is a set-and-forget plugin that allows you to automatically drip-feed your content to dozens of online platforms, build backlinks, include relevant YouTube videos and images, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – drip-feed your content to dozens of traffic-generating sites)
With SocialLinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate content to many social platforms, like:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Bitly, Linkagogo, Plurk, Reddit, etc.
- Blogging Platforms: e.g. Livejournal, Rebel Mouse, Tumblr, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- Document Sharing: e.g. Docdroid, Gett, etc.
Visit this site to learn more about the benefits of this plugin: SocialLinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (so you can get actionable information about your content distribution efforts), we have created a comprehensive article where we explore several social media tracking tools that are worth checking out and knowing about. More information:
The above are just some 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 Automation Blueprint: Content Distribution Phase – Summary
Once your website or blog and plugins have been configured and set up, all you have to do to automatically attract new traffic is add fresh content regularly.
We have created an entire email email-based training course designed to help you never run out of content for posting to your site:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the process. This step is explained in the next article in our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section 4
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