Welcome to Part Four of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to automate traffic to your site using the WordPress CMS.
So far, we have covered the following in this article series:
In Part One, we explain why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is publish web content consistently to start driving traffic!)
In Part 2, we look at the setup phase. We help you understand the best way to start 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 site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part 3, we focus on the configuration phase of this system.
Here, we configure all the settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part Three you learn how to configure all the settings that can affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In Part 4, we explain how to set up various plugins that can help get new visitors automatically to your site as you begin to post web content consistently.
Why Automating Your Traffic-Getting Process Makes Sense
Depending on which marketing guru you listen to, you could find yourself spending 1-2 hours per day (or more) posting content on social media in addition to trying to run your business, creating content and managing your online presence.
Many small business owners simply lack the time, resources and financial means to employ the services of a full-time marketing department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts are prescribing. If you were to spend hours posting updates on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter in addition to researching and writing content for your website or blog, how could you get anything else in your business done?
(Keeping a business running is how most small businesses spend their time. Infographic source: NFIB)
Small businesses spend most of their working hours trying to keep their businesses up and running. In addition to running a business, there’s also sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to stay competitive and make sales in order to survive.
Marketing research done by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- Almost half of all small businesses surveyed spent around 6 hours each week on social media (the other half spent even more time – between 6 and 21+ hours per week). This usage of social media was a 66% increase from the previous year, so if the same research was conducted today, the figures would probably be even 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.
(Small businesses are spending more time marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic source: VerticalResponse.com)
As businesses spend more time on online marketing as a matter of business survival and competition, this puts more and more pressure on businesses to prioritize their time on other equally vital areas …
(Businesses with limited budget, time, and resources and many areas to focus on need to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
One other thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time promoting and marketing your business on a number of social media 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 Pinterest. These companies can make decisions that affect your business without consulting you. Why invest so much time and effort building a business on someone else’s real estate? With a self-hosted WordPress website, you can control your own real estate and distribute your content automatically to other websites.
Automating processes to save time and increase productivity is not new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it ever since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the availability of so many new channels for promoting and marketing a business online creates a number of dilemmas for business owners, especially for those with limited marketing budget, time, and resources. For example:
- Which channels should you focus more of your time, efforts, and your budget on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.) while neglecting the benefits of building content on your own domain?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to promote and market your business on?
The Benefits Of Automating Your Traffic Generation With WordPress
What we’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective method that lets you automate your traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this strategy, 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 of your time, budget, and your efforts on,
- Invest most of your efforts building your own asset 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 avoiding black hat methods, websites, solutions, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of sites like Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not have to involve using black hat techniques!)
What we are focusing in this article is 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
As we’ve just seen in the previous section, many businesses lack the time, resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online experts recommend. What you want to do, then, is to be strategic and work smart within your limited resources, time, and budget.
So, instead of choosing this approach, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to individual channels is very time-consuming!)
Why not opt for this time-saving strategy 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 your content distribution to all other marketing channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social media sites and social 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 get all this done?
Simple … first, set up your website or blog as described in Part Two. Then, expertly configure it as described in Part 3. Once all of this is in place, you can then connect all of the dots with plugins such as the ones listed below.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic System – Traffic Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at a few plugins that can help to:
- Post content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking websites
- Post comments automatically to other blogs
- Syndicate content via RSS feeds 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 great functions.
After installing Jetpack, you will need to connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account …
(Make sure the Jetpack plugin is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Jetpack – Publicize)
Configure this section to share your posts on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and more …
(Publicize your content to several social 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 account options show in your Publish box.)
Now, as soon as you publish a new post, it will automatically get shared on all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as content is published, it will be automatically distributed online.)
The Jetpack plugin provides a hands-free way to get more exposure for your content online on social networks.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The WordPress built-in commenting system allows your visitors to interact with your site, post comments, reply to existing comments and engage with your content as part of a social community.
You can enhance the WordPress built-in commenting feature using a third-party commenting plugin like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrates your comments 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 wider choice of backlinks if they plus1, tweet, or like your post. This plugin will visit the site of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which they can choose to include with their comment after clicking the submit button.
(CommentLuv Premium version can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your website.)
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
SocialLinkMachine
(Social Link Machine – Content distribution plugin)
Social Link Machine is a set-and-forget plugin that allows you to automatically syndicate content, build backlinks, include relevant YouTube videos and images, and 2nd-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – drip-feed content to over 30 social websites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically drip-feed content to dozens of traffic-generating websites, like:
- Social Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Bitly, Diigo, Kippt, Scoop.it, etc.
- Blogging Platforms: e.g. Livejournal, Overblog, Tumblr, etc.
- Social Platforms: Google Plus, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- Document Sharing Platforms: e.g. Docdroid, Gett, etc.
Visit this site to learn more about using this great plugin: SocialLinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (in order to get actionable information about your content marketing efforts), we have written a comprehensive article about social media tracking tools that are worth checking out and knowing about. If you are interested in learning more about this here:
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 System: Automated Content Syndication Stage – Summary
Once your WordPress site and plugins have been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do is publish content consistently to begin attracting traffic organically.
We have created an entire email series aimed at helping you come up with unlimited content for your site:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the process. This step is covered in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section 4
To read more, click on the link below:
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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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