Welcome to Part Four of our WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to turn your site into an automated web traffic generating machine using WordPress.
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 new content regularly to automatically generate traffic!)
In Part 2, we look at critical setup decisions. We help 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 website, and what to do if your website was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In Part Three, we look at configuring the system.
In this step, we configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part Three we show you how to configure all the settings that can affect your website’s traffic-getting ability)
In this section, we look at ways to automate traffic to your website using a number of plugins.
Why Automate The Traffic-Getting Process?
Depending on which marketing gurus you talk to, you could find yourself trying to spend 1-2 hours or more per day posting content on social media in addition to trying to run your business, creating content and managing your online presence.
Most small businesses lack the time, human 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 are recommending. If you are spending half your day posting updates on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn in addition to researching and writing content for your blog or website, how will you get anything in your business done?
(Keeping a business up and running is how most small businesses spend their time. Infographic: NFIB)
Many businesses spend most of their working hours keeping 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 grow in order to survive.
A study of small businesses conducted by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- Almost half of all businesses surveyed spent at least 6 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 usage of social media was a 66% increase from the previous year, so if the same survey was done today, the numbers would probably be even 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 consumed the most time online.
(Businesses are spending more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic: VerticalResponse.com)
As small businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time marketing and promoting themselves online as a matter of business survival and competition, this puts more and more of a squeeze on businesses to focus their time on other equally important areas …
(Businesses with limited budgets, time, and resources and many business areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
Another important thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time social websites, all of your efforts are going into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. These companies 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 someone else’s asset? With WordPress (self-hosted), you can have complete control of your own virtual real estate and distribute your content automatically to other online accounts.
Investing in business automation to save time and increase productivity is not new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it since the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the exponential growth marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for business owners and business managers, especially for those with limited time, budgets, and resources. For example:
- Which of these channels should you focus more of your efforts, budget, and time on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.) while neglecting the benefits of building content on 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 we’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula for automating your traffic generation with WordPress.
With this formula, you will be able to:
- Save time creating content for your website and social media,
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary web marketing channels,
- Determine which marketing channels you should focus more of your efforts, time, and budget on,
- Invest most of your time and efforts building your own asset 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 strongly recommend avoiding black hat software, sites, techniques, and anything designed to flaunt or violate the terms of service and policies of sites like Pinterest, Google, Facebook, etc..
(Automating your web traffic doesn’t require the use of black hat techniques!)
The purpose of this article series is not to manipulate web services or flaunt their terms of service, but to show you how to be smart with your resources and automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and marketing efforts, and get additional exposure online from sites visited by your target audience.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
We’ve just seen that many small businesses lack the time, resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many experts advise doing. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited budget, time, and resources.
So, instead of choosing this approach, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to marketing channels one by one can be extremely time-consuming!)
Why not use this method 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 once, and automate the distribution of your content to all other marketing channels.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social services and bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute content (and comments) to other blogs and online properties using RSS
- Automatically import content (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 site as described in Part Two. Then, get it all configured as described in Part 3. Once all of this is in place, you can then automate these processes with plugins.
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 quick look at a number of traffic-generation WordPress plugins that can help to:
- Syndicate content to social media sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Syndicate content to other online properties via RSS
Jetpack by WordPress.com
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, GooglePlus 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 many great functions.
After installing Jetpack, connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account set up in Part Three …
(Make sure that Jetpack is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate a feature called Publicize …
(Activate the Publicize feature)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and more …
(Share your posts automatically on various social media networks.)
After configuring all plugin and account settings, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account details displays in the post publishing box.)
Now, as soon as you publish new content, it will automatically be shared online to all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as you publish, your post will be automatically shared online.)
Go here to learn more about this great plugin: Jetpack
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The WordPress built-in commenting system allows your blog readers to engage with your website or blog, post comments, reply to other users and engage with your content.
You can enhance the WordPress built-in commenting feature with a third-party plugin like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrates with social media, helping to spread and share your content around.
For example, using a plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version) can help attract more comments and create more user engagement on your site. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social rewards like SEO backlinks, ability to use keywords in the username, social enticements for content-sharing, and the ability to add twitter names to comments. This plugin will visit the comment author’s website or blog while they enter their comment and retrieve their last blog posts, which can be included with their comment when they click submit.
(CommentLuv can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your website.)
To learn more about the benefits of this great plugin, visit the plugin site:
SocialLinkMachine
(Social Link Machine – Set-and-forget content distribution plugin for WordPress)
Social LinkMachine is a WordPress plugin that allows you to syndicate your content to over 30 online websites, build backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and create social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – drip-feed your content automatically to over 30 traffic-generating websites)
With SocialLinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate and drip-feed content to many authority platforms, including:
- Social Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Bitly, Folkd, Kippt, Zotero, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blog.com, Overblog, Tumblr, etc.
- Social Platforms: Google Plus, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- PDF Sharing Platforms: e.g. Issuu, Gett, etc.
Visit this site to learn more about this plugin: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (so you can get useful information about your content distribution efforts), we have written a detailed article on social media measurement tools and technologies that are worth checking out and knowing about. Go here to learn more:
The above are just some 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 System: Content Sharing Phase – Summary
Once you have your website and plugins set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then to automatically bring more web traffic is publish content consistently.
We have created an entire email series designed to help you never run out of great content ideas for your site:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the process. This step is covered in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Section Four
To keep reading, click here:
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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