Welcome to Part Four of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
So far, here is what we have covered in this series:
In Part 1, we explained 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 web content on a regular basis to begin attracting web traffic!)
In Part Two, we focus on critical setup decisions. We help you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence 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 the configuration phase of the automation system.
In this step, we configure all the settings that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part Three you will configure all the settings (hosting, WordPress and external) that can affect your site’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part Four, we will look at ways to automate the traffic system using a number of WordPress plugins.
Why You Should Automate Your Traffic Generation Process
Depending on which marketing gurus you get your advice from, you could end up trying to spend 1-2 hours per day (or more) promoting your business on social media while also managing your business, your content and your web presence.
Most businesses simply lack the time, resources and budget to employ the services of a full-time marketing and content creation department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts recommend doing. If you spend all of your time posting updates on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn in addition to planning and writing content for your website or blog, how does anything in your business get done?
(Keeping a business up and running is how most small businesses spend their time. Infographic source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many business owners spend most of their time 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 make sales in order to survive.
Research conducted in 2012 by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- Almost half of all businesses surveyed spent 6 or more hours per 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 use of social media was a 66% increase from the previous year, so if the same survey was done 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 consumed the most time online.
(Small businesses spend more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic: VerticalResponse)
As small businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time promoting and marketing themselves online as a matter of business survival and competition, this leaves less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other areas …
(Businesses with limited resources, time, and budgets and many different areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
Another important thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time marketing and promoting your business on various social websites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. These sites can make decisions that can dramatically affect your business without requiring your input. Why invest so much effort and time building a business on someone else’s real estate? With WordPress, you can have complete control of your own virtual real estate and publish your content automatically to other sites.
Automating business processes to leverage time and increase productivity is nothing new. Businesses have been doing it since the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the increased availability of so many new channels for promoting and marketing a business creates a number of dilemmas for business owners, especially for those with limited resources, time, and budget. For example:
- Which of these channels should you invest more time, budget, and your efforts 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 your own website?
- 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 I’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula that allows you to automate your traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this method, you will be able to:
- Save time creating web content and other marketing channels (e.g. social media),
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary web marketing channels,
- Determine which marketing channels you should focus more of your budget, efforts, and your time on,
- Invest most of your efforts 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 techniques, solutions, sites, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of sites like Facebook, Pinterest, Google, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not need to involve the use of black hat techniques!)
The purpose of this article series is to show you how to automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and efforts, and increase your exposure online to sites 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 small businesses lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts recommend. What you want to do, then, is to be strategic and work smart within your limited time, budget, and resources.
So, instead of choosing this time-consuming approach …
(Posting content to different marketing 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 one-time, and automate the distribution of your content to all other marketing channels.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social sites and bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute comments and content 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 website or blog as described in Part 2. Then, expertly configure everything as explained in Part Three. After all this is in place, you can then connect all of the dots using plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Plugins
Let’s take a look now at a number of traffic-generation WordPress plugins that can help to:
- Distribute content to social media sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Syndicate content automatically to other sites via RSS
Jetpack Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Google+ 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 useful functions.
After Jetpack has been installed, you will need to connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account (which you would have set up in Part Three.) …
(Make sure that Jetpack is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate a feature called Publicize …
(Jetpack – Publicize feature)
You can share your posts on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and more …
(Share your posts on several social networks.)
After configuring all account and plugin settings, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account options show in the Publish area.)
Now, as soon as you publish new content, it will automatically get shared online to all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as new posts are published, they will be automatically shared online.)
Visit the plugin site to learn more about the benefits of using this plugin: Jetpack WordPress Plugin
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
WordPress has a native commenting feature that allows your visitors to interact with your website or blog, post new comments, reply to existing comments and participate in discussions as part of an online community.
You can enhance the WordPress built-in commenting feature using 3rd-party plugins like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrate your comments with social media, helping to share and spread them around.
For example, a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version) can help make your blog more attractive to commenters by offering them a choice of backlinks if they like, +1, or tweet your content. This plugin will visit the website of the comment author while they are typing their comment and retrieve their most recent blog posts, which they can choose to include below their comment when they click the submit button.
(CommentLuv can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your web site.)
To learn more about this plugin, visit the plugin website:
Social LinkMachine
(SocialLinkMachine – Content distribution plugin for WordPress)
SocialLinkMachine is a set-and-forget WordPress plugin that allows you to automatically drip-feed your content to over 30 traffic-generating websites, build diverse anchor text backlinks, include relevant videos and images, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – drip-feed your content automatically to many authority sites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically drip-feed content to dozens of online sites, including:
- Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Deviantart, Linkagogo, Plurk, Zotero, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogs: e.g. Livejournal, Rebel Mouse, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- Document Sharing Platforms: e.g. Issuu, Sendspace, etc.
Visit this website to learn more about this great plugin: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (so you can get actionable information about your content distribution campaigns), we have written a comprehensive article listing several social media measurement tools that you may want to check out. More information:
The above are just a few examples of the many plugins that WordPress makes available for automating and sharing 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: Automated Content Sharing Stage – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site and plugins configured and set up, all you then have to do is publish fresh content regularly to automatically generate more traffic organically.
If you need endless content ideas for your website, we recommend subscribing to our FREE email training course on growing your business online with content marketing here:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize as much of the process as can be improved. This step is covered in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section 4
To read the rest of this article, click here:
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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