Welcome to Part Four of our WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive visitors automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS platform.
So far, here is what we have covered in this series:
In Part One of this article series, we described the traffic automation process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is post content on a regular basis to automatically bring traffic!)
In Part 2, we focus on critical setup decisions. We help you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part 3, we discuss configuring WordPress.
In this step, we configure all the settings (hosting, internal and external) that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 we explain how to configure all the settings (hosting, internal and external) that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In this article, we explain how to set up various WordPress plugins that can drive web traffic automatically to your website just by posting fresh content on a regular basis.
Why Automate The Traffic-Getting Process?
Depending on which experts you get your advice from, you could end up investing an hour each day (or more) promoting your business on social media.
Most businesses simply lack the time, human resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts prescribe. If you are spending all of your time checking Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn in addition to planning 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 just keeping their businesses up and running. Image source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Small business owners spend most of their working hours just 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 email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- Almost half of all small businesses surveyed spent at least six 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 use of social media 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 to create a blog post.
- Finding and posting content for social media consumed the most time online.
(Businesses are spending more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic: VerticalResponse.com)
As businesses spend more time on online marketing in order to compete and survive, this leaves less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other equally vital areas …
(Businesses with limited resources, marketing budgets, and time and many areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
One other thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time promoting and marketing your business on a number of social websites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you have no control over. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube. These sites can make decisions that can significantly impact your business without requiring your input. Why invest so much time and effort building a business on rented real estate? With WordPress (self-hosted), you can control your own virtual real estate and publish your content automatically to other sites.
Automating business processes to save time is not new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it since the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the exponential growth online marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for business owners, especially for those with limited time, marketing budgets, and resources. For example:
- Which marketing channels do you focus more efforts, budget, and your time on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that you do not own (e.g. YouTube, LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc.) while ignoring the benefits of building content on your own website?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to market and promote your business on?
The Benefits Of Automating Your Traffic Generation Process With WordPress
What we’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective method that lets you automate your traffic generation with WordPress.
With this formula, you will be able to:
- Save time creating content for your website or blog and other marketing channels (e.g. social media),
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary online marketing channels,
- Determine which marketing channels you should focus more of your time, budget, 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 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 recommend avoiding black hat websites, techniques, tools, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of companies like Pinterest, Facebook, Google.
(Web traffic automation does not require the use of black hat techniques!)
What we are focusing in this article series is not to manipulate online services or break their terms of service, but to show you how to automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and 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 businesses lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online experts are prescribing. What you want to do, then, is work smart within your limited resources.
So, instead of using this time-consuming approach …
(Posting content to different channels is 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 channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social sites and bookmarking sites,
- Distribute comments and content automatically to other blogs and web 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, expertly configure everything as described in Part 3. After all this is in place, you then automate the process using plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Traffic Generation Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at some plugins that can:
- Post content to social media sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Post comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content automatically via RSS to other online properties
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, 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 features.
After Jetpack has been installed, you will need to connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account (set up in Part 3.) …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Jetpack plugin – Publicize feature)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, GooglePlus, and more …
(Distribute your content automatically to various social media networks.)
After configuring all of the plugin and account settings, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize settings appear in your Publish area.)
Now, whenever you publish a new post, it will automatically get shared online to every account you have set up …
(As soon as you publish, your posts are automatically distributed online.)
For more details about this plugin, go here: Jetpack WordPress Plugin
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The built-in WordPress commenting feature lets your site users interact with your web site, post new comments, reply to existing comments and engage with your content.
You can enhance the WordPress native commenting feature with a third-party plugin like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrates with social media, helping to share and spread them online.
For example, with a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version), you can make your blog more attractive to commenters by offering them a wider choice of backlinks if they like, plus1, or tweet your post. This plugin will visit the comment author’s website or blog while they are typing their comment and retrieve their most recent blog posts, which can be included at the bottom of their comment when they click submit.
(CommentLuv Pro version can encourage a greater level of commenting and improve user engagement on your site.)
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Social Link Machine
(Social Link Machine – Set-and-forget content distribution plugin)
SocialLinkMachine is a WordPress plugin that lets you syndicate your content to over 30 traffic-generating sites, build backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social Link Machine – syndicate and drip-feed your content automatically to over 30 authority sites)
With Social Link Machine installed, you can automatically syndicate your content to many social platforms, like:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Delicious, Diigo, Instapaper, Reddit, etc.
- Blogging Platforms: e.g. Livejournal, Rebel Mouse, Tribe, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Facebook, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- PDF Sharing: e.g. Issuu, Gett, etc.
For more details about the benefits of using this plugin, go here: Social Link Machine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (in order to get useful information about your content distribution campaigns), we have written a detailed article about social media tracking tools that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives. For more details, 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 Blueprint: Content Syndication Phase – Summary
Once you have your website or blog and plugins configured and fully set up, all you then need to do is post content on a regular basis to automatically start generating more traffic.
We have created an entire email course designed to help you never run out of great content for posting to your website or blog:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the web-traffic generation process. This step is covered in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Part 4
To keep reading, click here:
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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