Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
So far, we have covered the following in this series:
In Part One, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to generate web traffic is publish great content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we look at 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 site was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In Part Three, we discussed important configuration decisions.
In this step, we configure all the settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part Three you learn how to configure all the settings that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In this step, we will show you how to set up various plugins that can bring traffic automatically to your website or blog simply by publishing fresh content.
Why Automating The Traffic Generation Makes Sense
Depending on who you talk to, you could end up trying to spend an hour or more each day promoting your business on social media.
Most businesses simply lack the time, resources and financial means to run a full-time marketing department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts advise doing. If you spent all of your time checking Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn in addition to researching and writing articles for your blog or website, how would anything else in your business ever get done?
(Keeping a business up and running is how most small business owners spend their time. Infographic source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Small business owners spend most of their time trying to keep their businesses up and running. On top of this, there’s also sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to remain competitive and grow in order to survive.
A study of small businesses done by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- 43% of all small businesses surveyed spent six or more hours each week on social media (the other half of businesses surveyed that used 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 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.
(Small businesses are spending more time marketing and promoting themselves online. Source: VerticalResponse)
As businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time marketing and promoting themselves online in order to compete and survive, this leaves even less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other areas …
(Businesses with limited budgets, time, and resources and many areas to focus on need to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
One other important thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time social sites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you have no control over. You don’t own Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. These sites often will make decisions that can significantly impact your business without prior warning. Why invest so much time and effort building a business on someone else’s real estate? With WordPress, you can have complete control of your own virtual real estate and post your content automatically to other websites.
Automating processes to save time is nothing new. Businesses have been doing it since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the availability of so many new marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners and marketing managers, especially for those with limited time, budgets, and resources. For example:
- Which marketing channels should you focus more of your budget, time, and efforts on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that you do not control (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, 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 The Traffic-Getting Process With WordPress
What I’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective strategy that allows you to automate your traffic generation process with WordPress.
With this strategy, 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 marketing channels you should focus more of your efforts, budget, and 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 strongly recommend staying away from all black hat solutions, methods, sites, and anything that violates the terms of service and policies of companies like Pinterest, Google, Facebook, etc..
(Automating your web traffic doesn’t require the use of black hat techniques!)
What we are focusing in this article is not to manipulate web services or break 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 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
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 many online experts are prescribing. What you want to do, then, is to be strategic and work smart within your limitations.
So, instead of doing this …
(Posting content to individual marketing channels is extremely time-consuming!)
Why not use this 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 once, and automate the distribution of your content to all other marketing channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social media channels and social bookmarking sites,
- Distribute comments and content automatically 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 WordPress website or blog as explained in Part 2. Then, expertly configure your site settings as shown in Part 3. Once all of this is in place, you can then automate the content distribution using plugins such as the ones listed in the following section.
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 plugins that can help:
- Post content to social media sites and social bookmarking websites
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Syndicate content automatically to other online properties via RSS
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, GooglePlus, LinkedIn 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 loads of great functions.
After installing Jetpack, connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account set up in Part 3 …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Jetpack plugin – Publicize)
You can share your posts on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, GooglePlus, and more …
(Share your posts automatically on several social media networks.)
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 details displayed in the post publishing section.)
Now, whenever you publish a new post, it will automatically get shared on every account you have set up …
(As soon as content is published, it is automatically syndicated online.)
The Jetpack plugin provides you with a hands-free way to create more exposure for your content online on social media websites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The WordPress native commenting system lets your blog readers engage with your web site, post comments, reply to other users and engage with your content as part of a community.
You can enhance the WordPress native commenting feature with a 3rd-party plugin like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrates your comments with social media, helping to spread and share your content around.
For example, with a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version), you can make your blog more attractive to commenters by offering them a wider choice of backlinks if they tweet, like, or plus1 your post. This plugin will visit the website or blog of the comment author while they are typing their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which can be included below their comment after clicking submit.
(CommentLuv can attract more comments and create more user engagement on your website or blog.)
To learn more about this great plugin, go here:
Social LinkMachine
(Social LinkMachine – Set-and-forget content distribution plugin)
Social Link Machine is a set-and-forget WordPress plugin that lets you syndicate your content, build backlinks, include relevant YouTube videos and images, and create 2nd-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – syndicate and drip-feed content to many authority sites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically drip-feed content to many authority platforms, such as:
- Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Delicious, Diigo, Kippt, Stumbleupon, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogs: e.g. Blogger, Rebel Mouse, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Facebook, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- PDF Sharing: e.g. Docdroid, Scribd, etc.
To learn more about using this plugin, go here: SocialLinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (in order to get actionable information about your content marketing campaigns), we have written a detailed article listing a number of social media monitoring tools and technologies that are worth knowing about. More info:
The above are just a few examples of the many plugins that WordPress makes available for automating 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 Syndication Phase – Summary
Once you have your website and plugins fully set up and configured, all you then need to do to begin bringing new web traffic is publish fresh content on a regular basis.
We have created a complete email email-based training course designed to help you come up with limitless content for posting to your site:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the process. This step is addressed in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Four
To keep reading, click on the link below:
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