Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to create an automated web traffic machine using WordPress.
So far, we have covered the following in this article series:
In Part 1, we explain why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do is post web content on a regular basis to automatically start generating more web traffic!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In Part Three, we focused on the configuration phase of the blueprint.
In this step, we configure all the settings that affect your website’s traffic-getting ability …
(In Part 3 you learn how to configure all the settings that affect your website’s traffic-getting ability)
In this section of the article series, we explain how to set up various WordPress plugins that can help bring new visitors automatically to your website or blog.
Why You Should Automate Your Traffic Generation Process
Depending on which marketing guru you get your advice from, you could end up trying to spend an hour or two per day (or more) posting content on social media.
Many small business owners simply lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts recommend doing. If you were to spend all of your time checking LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook in addition to writing content for your website or blog, how would anything else in your business get done?
(Small businesses spend most of their time just keeping their businesses up and running. Infographic source: 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 stay competitive and grow in order to survive.
A study of small businesses done in 2012 by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- 43% of all small businesses surveyed spent six or more hours per 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 research was conducted today, the numbers would most likely be higher.
- More than half of all businesses surveyed spent 1-3 hours or more creating a blog post.
- Finding and posting content for social media was the activity that consumed the most time online for all businesses surveyed.
(Businesses spend more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic: VerticalResponse.com)
As small businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time on online marketing as a matter of business survival and competition, this leaves less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other areas …
(Businesses with limited time, resources, and budgets and many areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
One other important thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time marketing and promoting your business on various social media websites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. These sites can make decisions that can dramatically impact your business without requiring your input. Why invest so much time and effort building content on someone else’s asset? With WordPress, you can have complete control of your own real estate and distribute your content automatically to other online properties.
Investing in automation to save time is not 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 small business owners, especially for those with limited resources, time, and budget. For example:
- Which of these marketing channels should you focus more of your time, efforts, and budget on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. YouTube, LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc.) while ignoring your own website?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to market and promote your business on?
The Benefits Of Automating The Traffic-Getting Process With WordPress
What I’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula that lets you automate the traffic generation process with WordPress.
With this strategy, you will be able to:
- Save time creating content for your website or blog and social media,
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary online marketing costs,
- Determine which channels you should invest more time, efforts, and budget on,
- Invest most of your 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 strongly recommend avoiding black hat sites, techniques, software, and anything designed to “game” or violate the terms of service and policies of companies like Twitter, Google, Facebook, etc..
(Automating your web traffic does not have to involve the use of black hat methods!)
The purpose of this article is not to manipulate online services or bypass their terms of service, but 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 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 business owners lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts advise. What you want to do, then, is to be strategic and work smart within your limited resources.
So, instead of choosing this approach, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to individual marketing channels 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 once, and automate the distribution of your content to all other services.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social media services and bookmarking sites,
- Distribute comments and content 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 website or blog as explained in Part 2. Then, get it all configured as shown in Part Three. Once all of this is in place, you then connect all of the dots using plugins such as the ones listed in the following section.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Plugins
Let’s take a brief look at some examples of traffic-generation plugins that can help:
- Syndicate content automatically to social sites and social bookmarking sites
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Post content automatically to other web properties via RSS feeds
Jetpack by WordPress.com
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, GooglePlus 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 many useful functions.
After installing Jetpack, connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account you set up in Part 3 …
(Make sure that Jetpack is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Jetpack plugin – Publicize)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, and more …
(Distribute your posts automatically to several social accounts.)
After configuring all account and plugin settings, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize options appear in the post publishing area.)
Now, as soon as you publish a new post, it will automatically get shared on every account you have set up …
(As soon as posts are published, they are automatically shared online.)
Go here to learn more about this great plugin: Jetpack WordPress Plugin
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The native WordPress commenting feature lets your blog readers interact with your website, post new comments, reply to existing comments and engage with your content.
You can enhance the WordPress native commenting feature using a number of 3rd-party plugins that integrate with social media, helping to share and spread your content around.
For example, with a plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version), you can make your blog more attractive to commenters by offering them a choice of backlinks if they plus1, tweet, or like your post. This plugin will visit the comment author’s site while they type their comment and retrieve their most recent blog posts, which can be included with their comment when they click the submit button.
(CommentLuv Premium version can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your site.)
To learn more about this plugin, go here:
Social Link Machine
(SocialLinkMachine – Set-and-forget content distribution plugin for WordPress)
Social Link Machine is a plugin for WordPress that lets you syndicate content, build backlinks, include relevant videos and images, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social Link Machine – drip-feed content to dozens of online websites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically drip-feed your content to many traffic-generating sites, like:
- Social Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Deviantart, Linkagogo, Kippt, Reddit, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Livejournal, Rebel Mouse, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Google Plus, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- Document Sharing: e.g. Docdroid, Scribd, etc.
Visit this site for more details about the benefits of using this handy plugin: Social Link Machine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (in order to get actionable information about your content distribution efforts), go here for a detailed article on social media measurement tools and technologies that will help you identify new trends and opportunities, track competitor activity, see what conversations are taking place online that can affect your business,etc:
The above are just a few examples of the many plugins that WordPress makes available for automating the distribution of your content online.
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 Syndication Stage – Summary
Once you have your website and plugins expertly configured and set up, all you have to do then is publish web content on a consistent basis to automatically begin attracting web traffic organically.
If you need great content ideas for your website or blog, we recommend subscribing to our FREE email training series here:
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 addressed in the next article in our WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Section 4
To read more, click on the link below:
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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