Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to create an automated web traffic generating machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
So far, here is what we have covered in this series:
In Part One, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is publish new content consistently to automatically attract new traffic!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase of the automation system. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part 3, we look at important configuration decisions.
Here, we configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that can affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 you will configure all the settings (hosting, internal and external) that can affect your website’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part Four, you will learn how to set up various WordPress plugins that can drive web traffic automatically to your site when you begin to add new content.
Why Automating Your Traffic Generation Makes Sense
Depending on which expert you get your advice from, you could find yourself spending a couple of hours or more each day posting content on social media.
Many business owners simply lack the time, human resources and financial means to employ the services of a full-time marketing department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts prescribe. If you spent all of your time posting updates on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook in addition to planning and writing content for your blog or website, how would anything else in your business ever get done?
(Keeping a business running is how most small businesses spend their time. Infographic source: NFIB)
Small businesses spend most of their time just keeping their businesses up and running. On top of this, there’s sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to stay competitive and grow in order to survive.
A study of small businesses conducted in 2012 by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- Almost half of all businesses surveyed spent around six hours each week on social media (the rest 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 figures would probably be 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 consumed the most time online.
(Businesses spend more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic source: VerticalResponse.com)
As small businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time marketing and promoting themselves online as a matter of business survival and competition, this leaves less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other areas …
(Businesses with limited resources, budget, and time and many different business areas to focus on need to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
Another 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 Pinterest. These sites can and will make decisions that impact your business without consulting you. Why invest so much effort and time building content on someone else’s asset? With a self-hosted WordPress website, you can control your own real estate and distribute your content automatically to other websites.
Automating processes to leverage time and increase productivity is not new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it ever since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the exponential growth channels for marketing and promoting a business online creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners and marketing managers, especially for those with limited resources, time, and budgets. For example:
- Which of these marketing channels should you focus more time, budget, and efforts on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that you do not control (e.g. YouTube, LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc.) while neglecting the benefits of building content on your own domain?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to market and promote your business on?
The Benefits Of Automating The Web Traffic Generation With WordPress
What I’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula that allows you to automate your traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this method, you will be able to:
- Save time creating web content and other marketing channels (e.g. social media),
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary web marketing channels,
- Determine which marketing channels you should invest more budget, efforts, and your time on,
- Invest most of your time and efforts building your own asset instead of someone else’s 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 strongly recommend staying away from all black hat websites, tools, methods, and anything designed to “game” or violate the terms of service and policies of sites like LinkedIn, Google, Facebook, etc..
(Automating your web traffic does not require using black hat methods!)
The purpose of this article series is to show you how to automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and marketing efforts, and get additional exposure online from 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 small business owners lack the time, resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts recommend. What you want to do, then, is to be strategic and work smart within your limited budget, resources, and time.
So, instead of choosing this approach, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to different channels is very time-consuming!)
Why not choose a smarter, time-saving strategy like the one shown below 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 one-time, and automate the distribution of your content to all other services.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social channels and bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute content (and comments) to other blogs and online properties using RSS
- Automatically import content (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 do all of this?
Simple … first, set up your website or blog as explained in Part 2. Then, expertly configure things as described in Part Three. Once all of this is in place, you can then connect all of the dots using plugins like the ones listed in the section below.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Traffic Plugins
Let’s take a brief look at some examples of traffic-generating WordPress plugins that can be used to:
- Syndicate content to social sites and social bookmarking sites
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Syndicate content to other websites via RSS
Jetpack WordPress Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Google+ and more as soon as you publish new content using a plugin like JetPack.
Download URL: https://jetpack.com/
Jetpack is a free WordPress plugin with loads of great features.
After Jetpack has been installed, you will need to connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account you set up in Part Three …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Activate the Publicize feature)
Configure this section to share your posts on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Google+, and more …
(Share your posts automatically on several social media sites.)
After configuring all of the plugin and account settings, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize details displayed in your Publish box.)
Now, as soon as you publish new content, it will automatically get shared online to all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as new posts are published, they will be automatically syndicated online.)
The Jetpack plugin provides you with an automated and hands-free way to create more exposure online for your content on social media sites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
WordPress has a native commenting system that allows your site users to engage with your site, post new comments, reply to other users and participate in discussions as part of an online community.
You can enhance the WordPress default commenting feature using 3rd-party plugins like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrate with social media, helping to share and spread them around.
For example, a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version) can help make your blog more attractive to commenters by offering them a choice of backlinks if they +1, tweet, or like your content. This plugin will visit the comment author’s website while they enter their comment and retrieve their most recent blog posts, which they can include at the bottom of their comment after clicking the submit button.
(CommentLuv can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your site.)
Visit this site for more information about this plugin:
SocialLinkMachine
(Social Link Machine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
SocialLinkMachine is a set-and-forget plugin that allows you to drip-feed your content, build backlinks, include relevant videos and images, and create social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – syndicate and drip-feed content to dozens of online sites)
With SocialLinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate and drip-feed content to many social platforms, like:
- Social Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Bitly, Linkagogo, Kippt, Stumbleupon, etc.
- Blogs: e.g. Livejournal, Rebel Mouse, Tumblr, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- PDF Sharing Platforms: e.g. Issuu, Sendspace, etc.
Visit this website to learn more about this great plugin: Social Link Machine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (so you can get useful information about your content distribution efforts), we have written a detailed article where we explore several social media measurement tools that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives. To learn more, visit this page:
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 Distribution Phase – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site and plugins fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to automatically generate traffic is add great content on a regular basis.
If you need endless content ideas for your web site, we recommend subscribing to our email training series here:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize as much of the process as can be improved. This step is addressed in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part Four
To read more, click here:
***
"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)
***