Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to create an automated traffic generation machine using WordPress.
So far, we have covered the following in this series:
In Part One, we explain why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is publish fresh content on a consistent basis to automatically begin attracting more web traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase of the blueprint. 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 how to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In Part 3, we looked at configuring the system.
In this step, we configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part Three we explain how to configure all the settings that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In Part 4, we look at ways to automate your traffic using a number of plugins.
Why You Should Automate Your Traffic Generation Process
Depending on who you listen to, you could find yourself trying to spend an hour or two every day (or more) posting content on social media.
Many business owners simply lack the time, resources and financial means to employ the services of a full-time marketing and content creation department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts recommend. If you were to spend most of your time posting updates on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn in addition to planning and writing content for your blog or website, how could you get anything else in your business done?
(Small businesses spend most of their working hours keeping their businesses up and running. Infographic: NFIB)
Many business owners spend most of their working hours 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 conducted in 2012 by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- 43% of all small businesses surveyed spent at least 6 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 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.
(Small businesses are spending more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Source: VerticalResponse.com)
As businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time on online marketing in order to compete and survive, this leaves less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other areas …
(Businesses with limited time, marketing budgets, and resources and many different business areas to focus on need to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
One other important thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time promoting and marketing your business on various social websites, all of your efforts are going into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest. These sites can and will make decisions that affect 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 have complete control of your own real estate and post your content automatically to other websites.
Investing in business automation to leverage time is not new. Businesses have been doing it ever since the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the increasing availability of hundreds of new channels for marketing and promoting a business creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners and marketing managers, especially for those with limited marketing budget, resources, and time. For example:
- Which of these channels should you focus more efforts, budget, and time on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that you do not own (e.g. YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.) while neglecting your own website?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to include in your marketing strategy?
The Benefits Of Automating Your Web Traffic Generation With WordPress
What we’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective strategy that lets you automate your traffic generation 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 marketing channels you should focus more efforts, time, and your budget 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 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 methods, websites, tools, and anything designed to “game” or violate the terms of service and policies of sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not have to involve 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 in order to 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
We’ve just seen that many small businesses 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 work smart within your limited resources.
So, instead of doing this …
(Posting content to services one at a time can be extremely time-consuming!)
Why not opt for a smarter, time-saving approach like this 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 channels.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social channels and social bookmarking sites,
- Distribute content (and comments) 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 get all of this done?
Simple … first, set up your WordPress site as explained in Part 2. Then, get it configured as explained in Part Three. After all this is in place, you can then automate various processes using plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Traffic-Getting Plugins
Let’s take a look now at some examples of WordPress plugins that can:
- Post content to social sites and social bookmarking websites
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content automatically via RSS feeds to other blogs
Jetpack by WordPress.com
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and more as soon as you publish new content using a WordPress plugin like JetPack.
Download URL: https://jetpack.com/
Jetpack is a free WordPress plugin with loads of great features.
After Jetpack has been installed, connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account set up in Part Three …
(Make sure the Jetpack plugin 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, LinkedIn, Google+, and more …
(Distribute your posts automatically to various social sites.)
After configuring all of the account and plugin settings, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize details show in your Publish area.)
Now, whenever you publish a new post, it will automatically be shared on all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as you publish, your posts are automatically syndicated online.)
This is a hands-free way to get more exposure online for your content on social media networks.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The WordPress commenting function lets your site users engage with your website, post new comments, reply to other users and participate in discussions as part of an online community.
You can enhance the WordPress built-in commenting feature using a 3rd-party commenting plugin like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrates with social media, helping to spread and share them 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 like, tweet, or +1 your content. This plugin will visit the website or blog of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their last 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 or blog.)
Go here to learn more about the benefits of using this plugin:
Social LinkMachine
(SocialLinkMachine – Set-and-forget content distribution plugin for WordPress)
SocialLinkMachine is a plugin for WordPress that lets you syndicate content to over 30 authority websites, build backlinks, include relevant videos and images, and 2nd-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – syndicate your content automatically to over 30 social sites)
With Social Link Machine installed, you can automatically drip-feed content to dozens of authority websites, including:
- Social Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Delicious, Folkd, Instapaper, Scoop.it, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blogger, Rebel Mouse, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- Document Sharing Platforms: e.g. Docdroid, Gett, etc.
To learn more about this plugin, visit this website: 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 campaigns), we have created a detailed article where we explore many social media measurement tools that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing campaigns. Visit this page to learn more:
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 System: Content Sharing Phase – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site and plugins expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do is publish new content consistently to automatically start generating web traffic.
We have created a complete email series designed to help you come up with limitless content ideas for your site:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize as much of the process as you can. This step is explained in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Part Four
To read more, click here:
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