Welcome to Part 4 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using WordPress.
So far, here is what we have covered in this article series:
In Part 1 of this series, we provide an overview of the traffic automation process, and explain why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to start generating web traffic is post great content on a regular basis!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the automation system. We explained the best way to get started 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 website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In Part 3, we discussed the configuration phase of this blueprint.
Here, we configure all the settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part Three you will configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that can affect your site’s traffic-getting ability)
In this section, we will show you how to set up various plugins that can help drive new visitors automatically to your website.
Why It Makes Sense To Automate The Traffic Generation
Depending on who you get your advice from, you could end up trying to spend 1-2 hours every day (or more) promoting your business on social media.
Many small business owners simply lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts recommend. If you spend hours checking Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn in addition to researching and writing content for your blog or website, how will you get anything else in your business done?
(Small businesses spend most of their time keeping their businesses up and running. Source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Small business owners spend most of their time keeping their businesses up and running. On top of this, there’s also sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to remain competitive and grow in order to survive.
Marketing research conducted by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- Almost half of all small businesses surveyed spent at least 6 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 was a 66% increase from the previous year, so if the same survey was done today, the numbers would probably be higher.
- More than half of all small businesses surveyed spent 1-3 hours or more creating a blog post.
- Finding and posting content for social media consumed the most time online.
(Businesses spend more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Image source: VerticalResponse.com)
As businesses spend more time promoting and marketing themselves online in order to compete and survive, this leaves less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other vital areas …
(Businesses with limited resources, time, and marketing budgets and many business 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 a number of social sites, all of your efforts are going into virtual real estate that you have no control over. You don’t own Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. These companies can and will make decisions that impact your business without prior notification. Why invest so much effort and time building a business on someone else’s real estate? With WordPress, you can control your own virtual real estate and publish your content automatically to other websites.
Automating business systems and processes to save time and increase productivity is not new. Businesses have been doing it since the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the increased availability of so many new marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners, especially for those with limited budget, time, and resources. For example:
- Which marketing channels do you focus more efforts, budget, and time on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. YouTube, 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 The Traffic Generation Process With WordPress
What I’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective method that allows you to automate the web traffic generation process with WordPress.
With this formula, you will be able to:
- Save time creating content for your website and social media,
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary web marketing channels,
- Determine which marketing channels you should focus more of your efforts, budget, and time on,
- Invest most of your 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 recommend staying away from all black hat software, techniques, websites, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of services like YouTube, Google, Facebook, etc..
(Automating your web traffic does not have to involve the use of black hat methods!)
The focus of this article is not to game online services or break their terms of service, but to show you how to be smart with your limited resources and automate your content distribution in order to 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 small businesses lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts are prescribing. What you want to do, then, is to be strategic and work smart within your limited resources.
So, instead of choosing this time-consuming approach …
(Posting content to different marketing channels individually 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 once, and automate the distribution of your content to all other services.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social services and 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 do all of this?
Simple … first, set up your site as shown in Part 2. Then, get it configured as described in Part Three. Once all of this is in place, you can then automate the process with plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Traffic-Getting Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at some plugins that can help:
- Post content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking websites
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Syndicate content via RSS feeds to other web properties
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Twitter, Facebook, 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 many 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 feature)
Configure this section to automatically share your posts on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and more …
(Distribute your content automatically to various social accounts.)
After all account and plugin settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account details in your publishing box.)
Now, as soon as you publish a new post, it will automatically be shared on all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as new content is published, it is automatically syndicated online.)
Jetpack provides you with an automated and hands-free way to create more exposure for your content online on social media networks.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
WordPress has a built-in commenting function that allows your visitors to engage with your web site, post new comments, reply to existing comments and engage with your content.
You can expand the WordPress native commenting feature with third-party plugins like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrate with social media, helping to share and spread your content online.
For example, a plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version) can help make your blog more attractive to commenters by offering them a wider choice of backlinks if they +1, tweet, or like your content. This plugin will visit the site of the comment author while they are typing their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which can be included with their comment after clicking the submit button.
(CommentLuv can encourage a greater level of commenting and improve user engagement on your website.)
Visit the plugin website to learn more about this handy plugin:
Social Link Machine
(SocialLinkMachine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
SocialLinkMachine is a set-and-forget plugin that allows you to automatically drip-feed content, build diverse anchor text backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – drip-feed content automatically to many traffic-generating sites)
With SocialLinkMachine installed, you can automatically drip-feed your content to over 30 online platforms, like:
- Social Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Bitly, Linkagogo, Plurk, Zotero, etc.
- Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blogger, Rebel Mouse, Tumblr, etc.
- Social Platforms: Google Plus, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- Document Sharing: e.g. Docdroid, Gett, etc.
Go here to learn more about this plugin: SocialLinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (in order to get useful information about your content marketing efforts), or to learn more about social media monitoring tools that are worth knowing about, refer to this article:
The above are just some 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 Process – Summary
Once you have your website and plugins set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do to automatically generate more web traffic is publish great content regularly.
We have created a complete email series aimed at helping you never run out of content ideas for your website or blog:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the process. This step is covered in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Section 4
To read the rest of this article, click here:
***
"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com
***