Welcome to Part Four of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to turn a site into an automated traffic generating machine using the WordPress CMS.
So far, we have covered the following in this article series:
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is post web content consistently to bring traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase of the blueprint. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part 3, we looked at the configuration phase.
Here, we configure all the settings (hosting, internal and external) that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 you will configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In this section of the article series, we will discuss ways to automate the traffic system using plugins.
Why It Makes Sense To Automate The Traffic Generation
Depending on which marketing guru you listen to, you could end up spending 1-2 hours every day (or more) posting content on social media while also managing your business, your content and your online presence.
Many businesses lack the time, human resources and budget to run a full-time marketing department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts are prescribing. If you spent hours checking Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook in addition to planning and writing articles for your blog or website, how would anything else in your business get done?
(Small business owners spend most of their time keeping their businesses up and running. Infographic: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Small businesses spend most of their time simply keeping their businesses up and running. On top of this, there’s also sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to remain competitive and make sales in order to survive.
A study of small businesses conducted by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- Almost half of all businesses surveyed spent at least 6 hours each week on social media (the other half of businesses surveyed using social media 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 survey was conducted today, the figures would most likely be significantly 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 was their most time-consuming online activity.
(Businesses are spending more time marketing and promoting themselves online. Image source: VerticalResponse)
As businesses spend more time on online marketing as a matter of business survival and competition, this leaves even less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other vital areas …
(Businesses with limited time, resources, and budget and many different 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 various 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 LinkedIn. These sites can and will make decisions that can significantly impact your business without first consulting you. Why invest so much effort and time building content on rented real estate? With WordPress, you can control your own real estate and post your content automatically to other sites.
Investing in business automation to save time and increase productivity is nothing new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it ever since the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the exponential growth channels for marketing and promoting a business creates a number of dilemmas for business owners, especially for those with limited time, marketing budgets, and resources. For example:
- Which of these marketing channels do you focus more of your efforts, budget, and time on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that belong to other people (e.g. YouTube, LinkedIn, Tumblr, 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 Traffic-Getting Process With WordPress
What I’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula for automating your 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 costs,
- Determine which channels you should focus more of your efforts, budget, and time 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 strongly urge you to avoid using black hat sites, solutions, techniques, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of services like Facebook, YouTube, Google, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not have to involve using black hat techniques!)
What we are focusing in this series of articles is to show you how to automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and marketing efforts, and get additional exposure online from websites frequented by your target audience.
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 financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online experts advise. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited budget, time, and resources.
So, instead of choosing this time-consuming approach …
(Posting content to different marketing channels one at a time can be very time-consuming!)
Why not do 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 once, and automate your content distribution to all other services.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social media sites and social 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 site as shown in Part Two. Then, get everything configured as explained in Part 3. After all this is in place, you then automate the content distribution with plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Traffic Generation Plugins
Let’s take a look now at a few traffic-generating WordPress plugins that can be used to:
- Syndicate content automatically to social sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Post comments automatically to other blogs
- Syndicate content automatically via RSS feeds to other blogs
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ 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 great features.
After Jetpack has been installed, you will need to connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Jetpack – Publicize feature)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, LinkedIn, and more …
(Share your content automatically on several 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 account settings show in the Publish box.)
Now, whenever you publish new content, it will automatically get shared on all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as you publish, your content will be automatically syndicated online.)
This is an automated and hands-free way to get more exposure online for your content on social websites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
WordPress has a built-in commenting function that lets your visitors engage with your website or blog, post new comments, reply to other users and engage with your content.
You can expand the WordPress default commenting feature with third-party plugins that integrate your comments with social media, helping to spread and share your content online.
For example, with a plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version), you can make your site more attractive to commenters by offering them a choice of backlinks if they +1, tweet, or like your content. This plugin will visit the website of the comment author while they are entering their comment and retrieve their most recent blog posts, which can be included at the bottom of their comment after clicking submit.
(CommentLuv can attract more comments and visitors and improve user engagement on your web site.)
Go here for more information about using this handy plugin:
Social LinkMachine
(SocialLinkMachine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social LinkMachine is a set-and-forget plugin for WordPress that lets you automatically syndicate and drip-feed content, build backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and second-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – syndicate your content to over 30 online websites)
With SocialLinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate and drip-feed your content to dozens of social sites, like:
- Social Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Bitly, Diigo, Plurk, Zotero, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Livejournal, Overblog, Tumblr, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- PDF Sharing Platforms: e.g. Issuu, Scribd, etc.
To learn more about this handy plugin, visit the plugin website: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (in order to get actionable information about your content distribution efforts), we have created a comprehensive article listing several social media measurement tools that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing campaigns. For more information, visit this page:
The above are just a few examples of the many content distribution plugins that are available to WordPress users.
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: Automated Content Sharing Process – Summary
Once your WordPress site and plugins have been set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do is publish web content on a consistent basis to automatically begin bringing new web traffic organically.
If you need endless content ideas for your web site, we recommend subscribing to our email training course on content marketing here:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the process. This step is covered in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part Four
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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