Welcome to Part Four of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new visitors automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS platform.
So far, here is what we have covered in this article series:
In Part 1 of this article series, we described the traffic automation process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is publish content on a consistent basis to automatically drive more traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase of the traffic automation system. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In Part 3, we looked at configuring WordPress.
Here, we configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 we show you how to configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that affect your website’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part 4, we discuss ways to automate traffic to your website using various plugins.
Why Automating The Traffic Generation Makes Sense
Depending on who you listen to, you could find yourself spending 1-2 hours per day (or more) promoting your business on social media, as well as managing your business, your content and your web presence.
Most businesses simply lack the time, resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts are prescribing. If you were to spend half a day checking Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn in addition to writing content for your blog or website, how could you get anything else in your business done?
(Small businesses spend most of their time keeping their businesses up and running. Infographic source: NFIB)
Many business owners spend most of their time simply keeping their businesses up and running. In addition to running a business, there’s sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to remain competitive and grow in order to survive.
Marketing research done in 2012 by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- 43% 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 was a 66% increase from the previous year, so if the same survey was conducted today, the numbers would most likely be even 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 their most time-consuming online activity.
(Businesses are spending more time marketing and promoting themselves online. Source: VerticalResponse)
As businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time on online marketing in order to compete and survive, this puts more and more of a squeeze on businesses to prioritize their time on other areas …
(Businesses with limited budget, time, and resources and many business areas to focus on have 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 a number of social media websites, 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 can dramatically impact your business without first consulting you. Why invest so much effort and time building a business on someone else’s real estate? With a self-hosted WordPress site, you can control your own virtual real estate and post your content automatically to other websites.
Automating processes to save time and increase productivity is not new. Businesses have been doing it ever since the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the increasing availability of many new channels for promoting and marketing a business online creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners and business managers, especially for those with limited resources, marketing budgets, and time. For example:
- Which channels do you invest more budget, time, and efforts 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 neglecting your own domain?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to include in your marketing strategy?
The Benefits Of Automating The Web Traffic Generation With WordPress
What I’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective method that allows you to automate the traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this method, 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 channels,
- Determine which channels you should focus more efforts, time, and your 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 urge you to avoid using black hat techniques, software, websites, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of companies like Twitter, Facebook, Google.
(Automating your web traffic does not have to involve the use of black hat techniques!)
What we are focusing in this article series is not to manipulate web services or bypass 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
We’ve just seen in the previous section how most businesses lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts prescribe. What you want to do, then, is to be strategic and work smart within your limited resources, budget, and time.
So, instead of choosing this approach, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to different marketing channels is very time-consuming!)
Why not use 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 media channels and bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute content (and comments) 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 Two. Then, configure your site settings as shown in Part 3. After all 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 System – Traffic Generation Plugins
Let’s take a look now at some examples of WordPress plugins that can:
- Post content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking sites
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Syndicate content via RSS to other sites
Jetpack by WordPress.com
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn 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 useful functions.
After installing Jetpack, you will need to connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account set up in Part 3 …
(Make sure the Jetpack plugin is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate a feature called Publicize …
(Jetpack plugin – Publicize feature)
You can share your posts on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, LinkedIn, GooglePlus, and more …
(Share your content automatically on several social sites.)
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 options appear in your post publishing section.)
Now, whenever you publish a new post, it will automatically be shared on all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as posts are published, they will be automatically shared online.)
To learn more about this WordPress plugin, go here: Jetpack
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
WordPress has a built-in commenting system that lets your visitors interact with your site, post new comments, reply to existing comments and participate in discussions as part of a community.
You can expand the WordPress default commenting feature using a third-party plugin like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrates your comments with social media, helping to share and spread your content online.
For example, a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version) can help make your blog more attractive to commenters by offering them a wider choice of backlinks if they plus1, tweet, or like your content. This plugin will visit the website of the comment author while they are typing their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which can be included at the bottom of their comment after clicking the submit button.
(CommentLuv Pro version can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your web site.)
Visit the plugin site to learn more about using this plugin:
SocialLinkMachine
(Social LinkMachine – Set-and-forget content distribution plugin for WordPress)
Social Link Machine is a plugin for WordPress that allows you to automatically syndicate your content, build backlinks, include relevant videos and images, and create second-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – drip-feed your content automatically to many social platforms)
With SocialLinkMachine installed, you can automatically drip-feed content to many online platforms, including:
- Social Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Bitly, Folkd, Kippt, Scoop.it, etc.
- Blogging Platforms: e.g. Livejournal, Sett, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- Document Sharing: e.g. Docdroid, Sendspace, etc.
Visit the plugin site to learn more about the benefits of this plugin: Social Link Machine
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 written a comprehensive article where we explore over 30 social media monitoring tools that will help you identify new trends and opportunities, track competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that can affect your business,etc. To learn more, go here:
The above are just a few examples of the many plugins that WordPress makes available for automating and syndicating 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 System: Automated Content Sharing Stage – Summary
Once your website or blog and plugins have been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do then to begin attracting new web traffic is add fresh content on a consistent basis.
We have created a complete email training series aimed at helping 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 our series.
This is the end of Section Four
To keep reading, click here:
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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