Welcome to Part Four of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to create an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
So far, here is what we have covered in this series:
In Part 1 of this article series, we describe 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 website or blog, all you have to do to automatically begin bringing web traffic is publish new content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we focus on the setup phase. We explain the best way to start 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 website is built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In Part Three, we focus on configuring the system.
Here, we configure all the settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part Three we explain how to configure all the settings that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In Part 4, we discuss ways to automate traffic to your website using plugins.
Why You Should Consider Automating Your Traffic Generation Process
Depending on which online marketing expert you get your advice from, you could end up trying to spend 1-2 hours or more per day promoting your business on social media.
Many business owners simply lack the time, human resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts recommend doing. If you were to spend all of your time posting updates on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn in addition to researching and writing articles for your blog or website, how would you get anything else in your business done?
(Small businesses spend most of their time keeping their businesses up and running. Image source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many businesses spend most of their working hours 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 grow in order to survive.
Marketing research conducted by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- 43% of all small businesses surveyed spent 6 or more 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 done today, the figures would probably be significantly higher.
- More than half of all small businesses surveyed spent 1-3 hours or more creating a blog post.
- Finding and posting content for social media was their most time-consuming online activity.
(Small businesses are spending more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Image source: VerticalResponse.com)
As businesses spend more time on online marketing in order to compete and survive, this leaves even less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other equally important areas …
(Businesses with limited budgets, resources, and time and many different business areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
One other important thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time promoting and marketing your business on various social media websites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or StumbleUpon. These companies can and will make decisions that can significantly affect your business without consulting you. Why invest so much effort and time building content on someone else’s real estate? With WordPress, you can have complete control of your own real estate and distribute your content automatically to other online properties.
Automating processes to save time 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 exponential growth channels for marketing and promoting a business online creates a number of dilemmas for business owners and marketing managers, especially for those with limited time, marketing budgets, and resources. For example:
- Which marketing channels do you invest more of your budget, time, and 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 the benefits of building content on your own website?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to market and promote your business on?
The Benefits Of Automating Your Traffic Generation With WordPress
What I’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula that allows you to automate your web traffic generation 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 web marketing channels,
- Determine which channels you should invest more time, budget, and efforts on,
- Invest most of your time and 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 strongly urge you to avoid using black hat tools, techniques, websites, and anything designed to manipulate or violate the terms of service and policies of companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc..
(Automating your web traffic does not require the use of black hat methods!)
The purpose of this article series is not to manipulate web services or bypass their terms of service, but to show you how to automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and efforts, and increase your exposure online to websites 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 business owners lack the time, human resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online experts recommend. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited budget, time, and resources.
So, instead of posting content to different marketing channels one at a time, which is extremely time-consuming …
(Posting content to individual marketing channels can be very time-consuming!)
Why not use a smarter, time-saving strategy like 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 content one-time, and automate the distribution of your content to all other services.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social media sites and bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute comments and content 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 do all of this?
Simple … first, set up your site as shown in Part Two. Then, get it configured as shown in Part 3. Once all of this is in place, you then automate the content distribution with plugins like the ones discussed below.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic System – Plugins
Let’s take a brief look at a few WordPress plugins that can:
- Syndicate content to social sites and social bookmarking sites
- Post comments automatically to other blogs
- Post content to other blogs via RSS
Jetpack WordPress Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, GooglePlus 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 many useful features.
After installing Jetpack, you will need to connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account set up in Part Three …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate a feature called Publicize …
(Activate the Publicize feature on Jetpack)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and more …
(Publicize your content to several social accounts.)
After configuring all of the plugin and account settings, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize options displayed in the publishing area.)
Now, as soon as you publish a new post, it will automatically be shared on every account you have set up …
(As soon as you publish, your posts are automatically distributed online.)
The Jetpack plugin provides an automated and hands-free way to create more exposure online for your content on social networks.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The native WordPress commenting function lets your site users interact with your web site, post comments, reply to existing comments and engage with your content as part of an online community.
You can expand the WordPress built-in commenting feature with a 3rd-party plugin that integrates your comments with social media, helping to spread and share them around.
For example, a plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version) can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your website or blog. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social reward features like search-indexable backlinks, using keywords in the username, adding twitter usernames to comments, and social enticements for content sharing. This plugin will visit the website of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which can be included with their comment after clicking the submit button.
(CommentLuv can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your website or blog.)
To learn more about using this great plugin, visit this website:
SocialLinkMachine
(Social LinkMachine – Content distribution plugin for WordPress)
SocialLinkMachine is a WordPress plugin that lets you automatically syndicate and drip-feed your content, build backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – drip-feed content to dozens of traffic-generating websites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically drip-feed your content to dozens of social sites, like:
- Social Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Deviantart, Linkagogo, Kippt, Reddit, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Livejournal, Sett, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Google Plus, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- PDF Sharing Platforms: e.g. Docdroid, Scribd, 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 tracking (so you can get useful information about your content distribution campaigns), we have written a comprehensive article where we explore a number of social media tracking tools that will help you identify new trends and opportunities, track competitor activity, see what conversations are taking place online that affect your business,etc. More information:
The above are just a few examples of the many plugins that WordPress makes available for automating and syndicating 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: Content Distribution Stage – Summary
Once your website or blog and plugins have been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do to attract traffic is publish new content on a regular basis.
If you need great content ideas for your website, then subscribe to our email training series on growing your business online with content marketing here:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize as much of the process as can be improved. This step is explained in the next article in our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Four
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