Welcome to Part Four of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a website into an automated traffic machine using WordPress.
So far, here is what we have covered in this article series:
In Part 1, we described the traffic automation process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to start attracting web traffic is add new content regularly!)
In Part Two, we focused on the setup phase of the blueprint. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part Three, we look at the configuration phase.
In this step, we configure all the settings that can affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 you learn how to configure all the settings (hosting, WordPress and external) that affect your website’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part Four, we will show you how to set up various plugins that can help get visitors automatically to your website simply by adding web content on a regular basis.
Why It Makes Sense To Automate The Traffic-Getting Process
Depending on which marketing expert you get your advice from, you could find yourself trying to spend 1-2 hours every day (or more) promoting your business on social media in addition to trying to run your business, creating content and managing your online presence.
Most businesses simply lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts advise doing. If you spend half your day posting updates on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn in addition to planning and writing articles for your website or blog, how can anything else in your business get done?
(Small business owners spend most of their working hours just keeping their businesses up and running. Infographic source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many businesses spend most of their working hours trying to keep their businesses up and running. In addition to running a business, there’s sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to stay competitive and grow in order to survive.
A study of small businesses conducted in 2012 by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- Almost half of all businesses surveyed spent around six hours per 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 survey was conducted today, the numbers 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 the activity that consumed the most time online for all businesses surveyed.
(Businesses are spending more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic source: VerticalResponse)
As businesses spend more time marketing and promoting themselves online as a matter of business survival and competition, this leaves even less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other areas …
(Businesses with limited budgets, time, and resources and many different areas to focus on need to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
One other thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time social media websites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you have no control over. You don’t own Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. These companies can make decisions that impact your business without first consulting you. Why invest so much time and effort building a business on rented real estate? With WordPress, you can control your own virtual real estate and publish your content automatically to other websites.
Automating processes to save time and increase productivity is nothing new. Businesses have been doing it since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the exponential growth channels for promoting and marketing a business creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners, especially for those with limited time, resources, and marketing budgets. For example:
- Which channels do you focus more efforts, budget, and your time on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, 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 The Traffic-Getting Process With WordPress
What I’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula for automating the traffic-getting 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 online marketing channels,
- Determine which channels you should focus more budget, efforts, and time on,
- Invest most of your 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 strongly recommend avoiding black hat websites, solutions, strategies, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of companies like Facebook, Pinterest, Google, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not require using black hat techniques!)
The purpose of this article 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 that your target audience frequents.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
We’ve just seen that most businesses lack the time, resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many experts are prescribing. What you want to do, then, is to be strategic and work smart within your limited resources, time, and budget.
So, instead of posting content to services individually, which is extremely time-consuming …
(Posting content to different channels can be very time-consuming!)
Why not choose this strategy 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 your content distribution to all other marketing channels.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social media sites and social 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 do all of this?
Simple … first, set up your website or blog as explained in Part 2. Then, get it configured as shown in Part 3. 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 Automation System – Plugins
Let’s take a brief look at some examples of WordPress plugins that can help:
- Distribute content to social sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content via RSS feeds to other sites
Jetpack WordPress Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, 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 Jetpack has been installed, you will need to connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account you set up in Part 3 …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate a feature called Publicize …
(Activate the Publicize feature on Jetpack)
Configure this section to share your posts on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and more …
(Share your content automatically on several social networks.)
After configuring all of the account and plugin settings, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account settings show in your post publishing box.)
Now, whenever you publish new content, it will automatically be shared on all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as content is published, it will be automatically syndicated online.)
Jetpack provides a hands-free way to get more exposure for your content online on social media websites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The WordPress native commenting function allows your blog readers to interact with your web site, post comments, reply to other users and engage with your content.
You can expand the WordPress native commenting feature using third-party plugins like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrate your comments with social media, helping to share and spread them around.
For example, with a plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version), you can create more user engagement on your web site. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social rewards like using keywords in the name, SEO backlinks, social enticements for sharing your content, and the ability to add twitter usernames to comments. This plugin will visit the comment author’s website while they are typing their comment and retrieve their last blog posts, which they can include below their comment when they click submit.
(CommentLuv Pro version can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your website or blog.)
Visit the plugin website for more details about the benefits of using this plugin:
Social LinkMachine
(SocialLinkMachine – Content distribution plugin for WordPress)
SocialLinkMachine is a set-and-forget plugin for WordPress that lets you automatically syndicate content, build backlinks, include relevant videos and images, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social Link Machine – syndicate your content to many traffic-generating sites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically drip-feed your content to over 30 online websites, such as:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Delicious, Diigo, Plurk, Zotero, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogs: e.g. Livejournal, Sett, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Google Plus, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- Document Sharing Platforms: e.g. Docdroid, Scribd, etc.
To learn more about this great plugin, go here: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (in order to get useful information about your content marketing campaigns), we have created a comprehensive article listing over 30 social media monitoring tools that will help you identify new trends and opportunities, track competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that could affect your business,etc. More info:
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 Blueprint: Content Distribution Stage – Summary
Once your website or blog and plugins have been fully set up and configured, all you need to do to automatically attract more traffic is publish content on a consistent basis.
If you need help coming up with unlimited great ideas for content that you can post on your website, then subscribe to our FREE email training series on growing your business with content marketing here:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the web-traffic generation process. This step is covered in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Section Four
To continue reading this article, click on the link below:
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