Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to drive new traffic automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS.
So far, here is what we have covered in this series:
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to bring more traffic is post fresh content on a consistent basis!)
In Part 2, we look at the setup phase. We help you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing site is built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part 3, we discussed important configuration decisions.
In this step, we configure all the settings that can affect your site’s traffic-getting ability …
(In Part Three you will configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In Part 4, we will show you how to set up various plugins that can help get new traffic automatically to your site.
Why You Should Automate The Traffic-Getting Process
Depending on which expert you talk to, you could end up investing a couple of hours per day (or more) promoting your business on social media.
Many businesses lack the time, human resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts are recommending. If you are spending most of your time posting updates on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn in addition to researching and writing content for your blog or website, how will you get anything else in your business done?
(Small businesses spend most of their time keeping their businesses up and running. Infographic: NFIB)
Many business owners spend most of their working hours simply keeping their businesses up and running. In addition to running a business, there’s sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to stay competitive and make sales in order to survive.
A study of small businesses done in 2012 by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- Almost half of all businesses surveyed spent at least six hours each week on social media (the other half spent even more time – between 6 and 21+ hours per week). This was a 66% increase from the previous year, so if the same research 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 was the activity that consumed the most time online for all businesses surveyed.
(Businesses are spending more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Image source: VerticalResponse)
As small businesses spend more time on online marketing as a matter of business survival and competition, this puts more and more pressure on businesses to prioritize their time on other areas …
(Businesses with limited marketing budget, resources, 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 marketing and promoting your business on a number of social websites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you have no control over. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. These companies can make decisions that affect your business without consulting you. Why invest so much time and effort building a business on someone else’s real estate? With a self-hosted WordPress website, you can control your own real estate and post your content automatically to other sites.
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 increasing availability of so many new online marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for business owners and marketing managers, especially for those with limited marketing budgets, time, and resources. For example:
- Which of these channels do you invest more of your budget, time, and your efforts on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that belong to other people (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.) while ignoring 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 The Traffic-Getting Process With WordPress
What we’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective method for automating your traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this strategy, 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 invest more of your budget, time, and your 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 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, techniques, websites, and anything that violates the terms of service and policies of companies like Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc..
(Web traffic automation doesn’t require the use of black hat methods!)
The purpose of this article is to show you how to automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and marketing efforts, and get additional exposure online from websites that your target audience frequents.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
We’ve just seen in the previous section how most businesses lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts prescribe. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited time, resources, and budget.
So, instead of using this time-consuming approach …
(Posting content to individual channels can be 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 channels.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social sites and bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute content (and comments) to other blogs and web 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 described in Part Two. Then, get everything configured as shown in Part Three. After all this is in place, you can then automate various processes using plugins like the ones shown in the following section.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic System – Traffic-Getting Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at some examples of traffic-generation WordPress plugins that can help:
- Post content automatically to social sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content automatically via RSS feeds to other sites
Jetpack Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, GooglePlus, LinkedIn 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 useful functions.
After installing Jetpack, you will need to connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account you set up in Part Three …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate a feature called Publicize …
(Activate the Publicize feature on Jetpack)
You can share your posts on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, and more …
(Share your content automatically on several social media networks.)
After all settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account details show in your Publish box.)
Now, as soon as you publish a new post, it will automatically get shared on all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as posts are published, they are automatically distributed online.)
For more details about this powerful plugin, visit this website: Jetpack WordPress Plugin
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The native WordPress commenting feature lets your visitors engage with your website, post new comments, reply to other users and participate in discussions as part of a community.
You can enhance the WordPress default commenting feature using a number of third-party plugins like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrate with social media, helping to share and spread your content online.
For example, with a plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version), you can improve user engagement on your website. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social rewards like the ability to add twitter handles to comments, social enticements for sharing your content, ability to use keywords in the username, and backlinks. This plugin will visit the website or blog 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 after clicking the submit button.
(CommentLuv can help attract more comments and traffic and create more user engagement on your web site.)
To learn more about this plugin, visit the plugin website:
SocialLinkMachine
(Social LinkMachine – Content distribution plugin)
Social LinkMachine is a WordPress plugin that allows you to automatically syndicate and drip-feed your content, build diverse anchor text backlinks, include relevant YouTube videos and images, and create social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social Link Machine – syndicate and drip-feed content to over 30 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, Diigo, Plurk, Stumbleupon, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blogger, Overblog, Tribe, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Google Plus, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- Document Sharing: e.g. Issuu, Sendspace, etc.
Go here to learn more about the benefits of using this plugin: SocialLinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (so you can get actionable information about your content distribution efforts), we have created a comprehensive article listing many social media tracking 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 Blueprint: Automated Content Distribution Process – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site and plugins expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do is post new content regularly to drive more web traffic.
We have created a complete email course aimed at helping you never run out of content ideas for your website or blog:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the web-traffic generation process. This step is covered in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section 4
To read more, click on the link below:
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