Welcome to Part Four of our WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to drive new traffic automatically to your site using WordPress.
So far, here is what we have covered in this article series:
In Part One, we provide an overview of the traffic automation process, and explain why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to begin attracting traffic is post new content on a consistent basis!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the automation system. 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 website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part Three, we focused on configuring the system.
Here, we configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that can affect your site’s traffic-getting ability …
(In Part 3 you learn how to configure all the settings that can affect your website’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part 4, we will show you how to set up various WordPress plugins that can help drive traffic automatically to your site.
Why It Makes Sense To Automate The Traffic Generation Process
Depending on which marketing guru you get your advice from, you could end up spending 1-2 hours per day (or more) posting content on social media while also managing your business, your content and your web presence.
Many businesses simply lack the time, human resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts are prescribing. If you spent all of your time checking LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter in addition to planning and writing articles for your blog or website, how would you get anything else in your business done?
(Small business owners spend most of their time keeping their businesses up and running. Image source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many businesses spend most of their time keeping their businesses up and running. On top of this, there’s sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to remain competitive and make sales in order to survive.
A study of small businesses done in 2012 by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- 43% of all small businesses surveyed spent six or more hours per week on social media (most of the other 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 probably be significantly 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 the activity that consumed the most time online for all businesses surveyed.
(Small businesses spend more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic source: VerticalResponse.com)
As small businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time promoting and marketing themselves online in order to compete and survive, this puts more and more pressure on businesses to focus their time on other equally vital areas …
(Businesses with limited resources, marketing budget, and time and many business areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
Another thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time 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 StumbleUpon. These sites can make decisions that can significantly affect your business without requiring your input. Why invest so much effort and time building a business on someone else’s asset? With WordPress, you can control your own virtual real estate and publish your content automatically to other websites.
Automating systems and process to save time is not new. Businesses have been doing it since the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the availability of hundreds of new marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners, especially for those with limited budget, time, and resources. For example:
- Which channels should you focus more of your time, efforts, and budget on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that you ultimately have no control over (e.g. YouTube, LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc.) while neglecting 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-Getting Process With WordPress
What we’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula that lets you automate your traffic generation 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 time, budget, and efforts on,
- Invest most of your time and 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 urge you to avoid using black hat tools, sites, techniques, and anything designed to flaunt or violate the policies and terms of service of sites like Google, Facebook, Pinterest, etc..
(Automating your web traffic does not require the use of black hat techniques!)
What we are focusing here is to show you how to automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and efforts, and get additional exposure online from 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, most businesses lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts advise doing. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited time, budget, and resources.
So, instead of choosing this approach, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to services individually can be very time-consuming!)
Why not use this time-saving approach 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 your content distribution to all other marketing channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social media sites and bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute comments and content 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 get all this done?
Simple … first, set up your WordPress site as shown in Part 2. Then, get it configured as shown in Part Three. After all this is in place, you then automate your content distribution with plugins such as the ones listed in the section below.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Traffic Generation Plugins
Let’s take a look now at a number of traffic-generation WordPress plugins that can:
- Syndicate content to social sites and social bookmarking sites
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content automatically to other web properties via RSS feeds
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, LinkedIn 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 useful 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 plugin – Publicize feature)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and more …
(Distribute your posts to several social sites.)
After all of the plugin and account settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize options show in your Publish box.)
Now, whenever you publish new content, it will automatically be shared on every account you have set up …
(As soon as you publish, your new posts are automatically distributed online.)
The Jetpack plugin provides you with a hands-free way to create more exposure online for your content on social sites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The WordPress commenting system allows your site users to engage with your site, post new comments, reply to other users and engage with your content as part of a social community.
You can enhance the WordPress built-in commenting feature using third-party plugins that integrate your comments with social media, helping to share and spread your content online.
For example, using a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version) can encourage a greater level of commenting and improve user engagement on your website or blog. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social rewards like SEO backlinks, using keywords in the name, social enticements for sharing your content, and the ability to add twitter usernames to comments. This plugin will visit the site of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their last 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 improve user engagement on your website or blog.)
To learn more about the benefits of this WordPress plugin, visit the plugin site:
SocialLinkMachine
(SocialLinkMachine – Content distribution plugin)
SocialLinkMachine is a plugin that allows you to automatically syndicate your content, build anchor text backlinks, include relevant videos and images, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – syndicate content to many traffic-generating websites)
With SocialLinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate content to over 30 traffic-generating websites, like:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Deviantart, Folkd, Plurk, Zotero, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blogger, Overblog, Tribe, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- PDF Sharing Platforms: e.g. Issuu, Gett, etc.
Go here to learn more about this plugin: Social Link Machine
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 written a comprehensive article listing several social media monitoring tools and technologies that are worth knowing about. See this page to learn more:
The above are just a few examples of the many content distribution plugins that WordPress makes available.
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 Syndication Stage – Summary
Once you have your website and plugins fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do is publish web content on a consistent basis to automatically start driving web traffic organically.
We have created a complete email series designed to help you come up with endless content ideas for your web site:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the web-traffic generation process. This step is explained in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Section 4
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
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