Welcome to Part Four of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic generation machine using WordPress.
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 automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is add web content consistently to bring web traffic!)
In Part 2, we focus on the setup phase of the automation system. We help 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 existing website is built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In Part Three, we discussed important configuration decisions.
Here, we configure all the settings (hosting, WordPress and external) that affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 you learn how to configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that affect your website’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part Four, we explain how to set up various WordPress plugins that can drive web traffic automatically to your website as you begin to post content consistently.
Why It Makes Sense To Automate The Traffic-Getting Process
Depending on which marketing guru you listen to, you could end up spending a couple of hours per day (or more) posting content on social media.
Many small business owners simply lack the time, 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 were to spend half a day posting updates on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook in addition to writing articles for your website or blog, how could you get anything else in your business done?
(Keeping a business running is how most small business owners spend their working hours. Infographic source: NFIB)
Small businesses spend most of their time trying to keep their businesses up and running. On top of this, there’s sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to stay competitive and make sales in order to survive.
Research done in 2012 by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- Almost half of all small businesses surveyed spent 6 or more hours each week on social media (most of the other 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 research 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 the activity that consumed the most time online for all businesses surveyed.
(Small businesses spend more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic: VerticalResponse.com)
As businesses spend more time on online marketing as a matter of business survival and competition, this puts more and more pressure on businesses to prioritize their time on other areas …
(Businesses with limited resources, marketing budgets, and time and many different areas to focus on need to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
One other important thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time promoting and marketing your business on various social websites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. These sites can make decisions that can dramatically affect your business without consulting you. Why invest so much time and effort building a business on someone else’s real estate? With WordPress (self-hosted), you can have complete control of your own virtual real estate and distribute your content automatically to other websites.
Automating systems and process 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 online marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for business owners and business managers, especially for those with limited time, resources, and marketing budgets. For example:
- Which of these channels should you focus more time, efforts, 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 domain?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to include in your marketing strategy?
The Benefits Of Automating Your Traffic Generation Process With WordPress
What I’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective strategy that lets you automate your web traffic generation process with WordPress.
With this method, you will be able to:
- Save time creating web content and social media,
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary online marketing channels,
- Determine which channels you should focus more budget, time, and efforts on,
- Invest most of your time 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 recommend avoiding black hat techniques, sites, solutions, and anything designed to manipulate or violate the terms of service and policies of companies like Google, Pinterest, Facebook, etc..
(Automating your web traffic does not need to involve using black hat techniques!)
The focus of this article is to show you how to be smart with your limited resources and automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and efforts, and increase your exposure online to sites used by your target audience.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
We’ve just seen that most small business owners lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many experts recommend. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited budget, resources, and time.
So, instead of choosing this approach, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to different marketing channels one at a time can be 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 one-time, and automate the distribution of your content to all other services.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social media services and social 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 do all of this?
Simple … first, set up your WordPress website or blog as described in Part 2. Then, get everything configured as explained in Part Three. Once all of this is in place, you then automate the process with plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Traffic-Getting Plugins
Let’s take a look now at some examples of traffic-generation plugins that can:
- Distribute content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking websites
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Syndicate content to other online properties via RSS feeds
Jetpack Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, 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 functions.
After Jetpack has been installed, you will need to connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Jetpack plugin – Publicize)
You can share your posts on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, GooglePlus, and more …
(Share your posts on several social media accounts.)
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 publishing 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 is automatically syndicated online.)
The Jetpack plugin provides an automated and hands-free way to get more exposure for your content online on social media websites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The WordPress commenting function lets your blog readers interact with your site, post comments, reply to other users and participate in discussions as part of an online community.
You can expand the WordPress built-in commenting feature with a third-party plugin like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrates your comments with social media, helping to share and spread them online.
For example, with a plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version), you can improve user engagement on your web site. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social rewards like adding twitter usernames to comments, using keywords in the user name, search-indexable backlinks, and social enticements for sharing content. This plugin will visit the comment author’s website or blog while they type their comment and retrieve their most recent blog posts, which can be included at the bottom of their comment when they click the submit button.
(CommentLuv can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your website.)
To learn more about this plugin, go here:
Social Link Machine
(Social LinkMachine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
SocialLinkMachine is a set-and-forget plugin for WordPress that lets you automatically syndicate your content to dozens of traffic-generating sites, build anchor text backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and second-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – syndicate your content automatically to dozens of social sites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate and drip-feed content to over 30 online websites, like:
- Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Bitly, Diigo, Kippt, Stumbleupon, etc.
- Blogs: e.g. Livejournal, Overblog, Tribe, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- Document Sharing: e.g. Issuu, Gett, etc.
Visit this site to learn more about the benefits of using 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 campaigns), we have created a detailed article listing over 30 social media measurement tools that will help you identify new trends and opportunities, track competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that affect your business,etc. For more details, go here:
The above are just a few examples of the many content distribution plugins that WordPress makes available.
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: Automated Content Sharing Phase – Summary
Once you have your website and plugins configured and fully set up, all you have to do is post new content on a consistent basis to automatically begin attracting web traffic.
We have created an entire email training series designed to help you never run out of content ideas for posting to your website:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the process. This step is explained in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Section 4
To read the rest of this article series, click on the link below:
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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