Category: WordPress Sales Funnel

Welcome to Part Five of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to create an automated traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS platform.

So far, we have covered the following in this series:

In Part One of this article 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 automating traffic to your site …

(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to drive more web traffic is add great content on a regular basis!)

In Part Two, we look at 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 existing site has been built using WordPress.

(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)

In Part Three, we focused on important configuration decisions. We configured all the settings (hosting, WordPress and external) that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …

(In Part Three we show you how to configure all the settings (hosting, internal and external) that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically)

In Part Four, we showed you how to set up various WordPress plugins that can bring new visitors automatically to your website or blog simply by publishing new content.

(Publish content one-time, automate the rest!)

In Part Five of the WordPress web traffic automation blueprint series, we look at ways to optimize your traffic with a number of different tools and methods.

WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Traffic Optimization Systems

In addition to getting your WordPress website expertly configured, the key to generating consistent traffic of high quality is having a clear business vision, careful digital planning, and good systems and process in place.

(Optimizing traffic is the product of a business vision, planning, and systems)

Let’s review the systems that will help you grow and manage your traffic.

These systems include:

• Marketing Systems – The processes and strategies used to create new traffic for your business.
• Technical Systems – The systems used to ensure that your web presence remains up and running for receiving traffic.
• Business Systems – The systems and processes used to manage and respond to traffic.

(Use systems to grow, automate, optimize, and manage your traffic)

Let’s review the importance of the above systems briefly:

Marketing Systems

Your marketing systems consist of the processes and strategies used to drive traffic to your website. Your marketing systems can be tested by asking questions such as:

• What is your online marketing strategy?
• What resources and portion of your marketing budget will you apply to these channels?
• Who will create your content and run your marketing campaigns?
• How will you measure the ROI of your online marketing campaigns?

During the setup and configuration phase, you would have installed an analytics program (e.g. Google Analytics). If you’re just starting out, you may want to consider investing in some paid advertising to help you generate some initial intelligence. If you’re tracking your marketing campaigns correctly, this should yield some actionable data, such as the keyword phrases people are searching online to find your site, which you can use to create content targeted specifically to your audience’s needs.

Technical Systems

Your technical systems ensure that your digital presence remains optimized for receiving new traffic. There’s no point sending traffic to your site if your site is experiencing problems or your web pages take a long time to load.

Your systems include handling technical areas like webhosting, site maintenance and support, installing, configuring, and updating new software (e.g. plugins), customization, integration, troubleshooting, etc.

You can test your technical systems by questions such as:

• Who will look after my server?
• Who will look after my website and keep my site maintained and up-to-date?
• Who will fix errors, troubleshoot problems, provide technical support and advice, etc. should things go wrong?

Many potential issues can be minimized if your website planning process and setup and configuration phases have been done correctly. As with all technology, however, you should expect new problems to arise. Your technical systems need to be able to handle these.

Business Systems

You need good business systems to help you manage and respond to new traffic. This includes:

• Communication systems
• Managing human and financial resources
• Handling leads and sales inquiries
• Order fulfillment
• Customer training/service
• etc.

If you intend to outsource your digital marketing and technical support, then you will need to put systems in place for managing all outsourcing processes.

WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Optimizing Traffic Generation

If your business objectives are clear and your systems and processes are in place, all you need to do is focus on how to develop a “traffic loop”.

Let’s walk through an example of implementing, optimizing, and further automating a traffic loop. Take a look at the illustration below …

(Implementing, optimizing and automating a traffic loop)

Increase Reach & Visibility Online

Step 1 of the process is to get your business exposed to as many members of your target audience as your resources allow.

Traffic Optimization Tips

• Your expertly configured WordPress site will allow you to instantly share your content on social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. The easiest way to increase your reach and visibility online, therefore, is to simply publish more content on your site.
• As mentioned earlier, investing in some paid advertising can help generate some initial data, which you can use to create web content better targeted to your audience.
• Repurpose your content to leverage different media formats.
• Continue learning about ways to increase more web traffic using methods like Twitter, podcasts, email, etc.

Plugins, Tools, And Methods

We’ve covered a number of excellent tools, plugins, and methods in previous sections of this tutorial series.

Also, learn more about plugins that let you easily add the following to your website or blog:

• Share your comments and posts online with others,
• Run contests, offer discounts or downloads for likes/shares,
• Display user generated content, feeds, etc.
• Publish and distribute content online in different media formats (e.g. videos, PDF guides, infographics, etc.)

Build Authority And Credibility

Getting more content published is a great first step, but for this activity to be really effective, your content also needs to build authority and credibility with visitors.

Publishing higher quality content not only helps to establish your credibility, it also improves your chances of getting more people to share it around and hence more traffic.

Useful Tips & Ideas

• Focus on creating content that will add value to users and showcase your expertise. This includes content that educates and informs readers, training content, case studies, adding testimonials, etc.
• Consider publishing an instructional e-book that can be sold or distributed online.

Plugins, Tools, And Strategies

We have created a comprehensive course on how to develop a content marketing strategy, how to promote your business with content, content creation tools, and how to never run out of new web content ideas that you can plug into for free here:

Also, if you haven’t already, ask us about plugins that allow you to easily add the following to your site:

• Legal Pages
• Testimonials
• Customer Support (e.g. Helpdesk, Live Chat, etc.)
• Ratings
• User Reviews
• Badges/Certificates Of Recognition

Grow Influence & Engagement

As your business grows, you may want to consider developing “traffic on demand.” You can achieve this by growing a list or starting a forum or network.

With “Traffic On Demand,” your traffic will come from an audience of existing customers or subscribers – people who already like you and trust you. Your influence and credibility can be used to generate new traffic with every post you publish, forum post you add, or email you send out.

Useful Tips

• Encourage users to leave comments and start discussions on your site.
• Add an autoresponder newsletter and encourage people to subscribe.
• Add a free or paid membership site, online forum, or social community.
• Start or join an online group on LinkedIn.

Tools, Plugins, And Strategies

There are many solutions and plugins that can help increase your online influence and improve engagement. For example:

• List-Building Software (e.g. Aweber, MailChimp, etc.)
• Contact Forms, Live Chat
• Forums and Discussion Groups (e.g. bbPress, BuddyPress)
• Polls and Surveys
• Webinars (e.g. Webinar JEO)
• Comment sharing
• Add media, image galleries, etc.

Identify Needs/Problems & Provide Solutions

By taking advantage of incoming traffic to discover what users are searching for, you can have an endless funnel of ideas for new solutions, all of which provide new opportunities to generate new sources of web traffic.

Tips

• Create a free or paid e-learning course.
• Consider publishing special guides that you can sell or distribute online.
• Add an e-commerce store to your site.

Tools And Methods

If you plan to provide products and services online (as opposed to just providing information), look for plugins that allow you to easily add the following to your website:

• Membership Sites (e.g. Wishlist Member, S2 Member, etc.)
• e-Learning Courses (e.g. Courseware)
• Event Registrations (e.g. EventEspresso)

Analyze Data & Feedback

The final step of the process is to collect and analyze data. Gathering and interpreting data from existing traffic lets you discover new traffic opportunities.

Hopefully, by now you have already installed an analytics tool like Google Analytics on your site. Make sure you also learn how to interpret the data.

WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Summary

All you have to do once you implement the above strategies is repeat the same process, fine-tuning and refining your methods as you go to grow your traffic and get better your results.

In summary:

• Start with an expertly configured WordPress site backed by good marketing, technical and business systems,
• Implement a content marketing strategy (consider adding some paid advertising to drive traffic and generate useful data) to increase your reach and visibility online,
• Add plugins, list-building strategies, and other solutions as required to help build authority and credibility, and also to improve engagement with visitors,
• Promote any new solutions, products or services using your existing channels and strategies to generate additional streams of traffic,
• Analyse your data and your results, automate your processes wherever possible, and begin the cycle again.

Hopefully, now you have a blueprint that will help you automate and optimize the process of driving visitors to your WordPress web site and build a more successful business online.

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