Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to grow your business online automatically using the WordPress CMS.
So far, here is what we have covered in this series:
In Part One, we explain why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to start generating more traffic is add web content regularly!)
In Part 2, we focus on critical setup decisions. We explain the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In Part 3, we looked at important configuration decisions.
In this step, we configure all the settings that can affect your website’s traffic-getting ability …
(In Part Three we explain how to configure all the settings that affect your site’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part 4, you will learn how to set up various plugins that can bring visitors automatically to your website when you begin publishing content.
Why Automating The Traffic Generation Makes Sense
Depending on who you get your advice from, you could find yourself trying to spend 1-2 hours every day (or more) posting content on social media.
Most businesses lack the time, resources and budget to run a full-time marketing and content creation department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts recommend doing. If you spend all of your time checking Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn in addition to researching and writing articles for your blog or website, how can anything in your business get done?
(Small business owners spend most of their time keeping their businesses up and running. Image source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many business owners spend most of their time keeping 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.
Marketing research done in 2012 by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- 43% of all small businesses surveyed spent at least 6 hours per week on social media (the rest spent even more time – between 6 and 21+ hours per week). This use of social media was a 66% increase from the previous year, so if the same survey was done today, the numbers would probably 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. Image 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 marketing budgets, time, and resources and many different business areas to focus on have to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
Another important thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time promoting and marketing your business on a number of 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 Pinterest. These companies often will make decisions that impact your business without prior warning. Why invest so much effort and time building content on rented real estate? With WordPress, you can control your own virtual real estate and publish your content automatically to other websites.
Automating business processes to save time is nothing 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 online marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners and business managers, especially for those with limited marketing budget, resources, and time. For example:
- Which of these channels should you invest more of your efforts, time, and budget on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.) while neglecting your own website?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to promote and market your business on?
The Benefits Of Automating Your Traffic Generation With WordPress
What we’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective method that lets you automate the web traffic generation with WordPress.
With this formula, 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 marketing channels you should invest more efforts, budget, and time on,
- Invest most of your time and 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 urge you to avoid using black hat sites, software, techniques, and anything designed to manipulate or violate the policies and terms of service of sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc..
(Web traffic automation doesn’t require using black hat methods!)
What we are focusing in 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 sites used 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 business owners lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts are prescribing. What you want to do, then, is to be strategic and work smart within your limitations.
So, instead of posting content to each different channel, which is extremely time-consuming …
(Posting content to different marketing channels is very time-consuming!)
Why not choose 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 your content distribution to all other services.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social media channels and social 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 get all this done?
Simple … first, set up your WordPress website or blog as explained in Part 2. Then, get it configured as described in Part Three. After all this is in place, you can then automate your content distribution using plugins such as the ones listed in the section below.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Traffic Plugins
Let’s take a look now at some examples of traffic-generation WordPress plugins that can:
- Distribute content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content automatically via RSS to other web properties
Jetpack Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, 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 Jetpack has been installed, you will need to connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account …
(Make sure that Jetpack is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Jetpack plugin – Publicize feature)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, and more …
(Publicize your content automatically to several social media networks.)
After all plugin and account settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account settings appear in your post publishing section.)
Now, as soon as you publish new content, it will automatically be shared on every account you have set up …
(As soon as new content is published, it is automatically distributed online.)
Visit the plugin website to learn more about the benefits of this plugin: Jetpack Plugin
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
WordPress has a built-in commenting feature that lets your blog readers interact with your website, post new comments, reply to existing comments and participate in discussions.
You can expand the WordPress built-in commenting feature using a third-party plugin that integrates with social media, helping to share and spread your content online.
For example, with a plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version), you can make your blog more attractive to commenters by offering them a wider choice of backlinks if they like, plus1, or tweet your content. This plugin will visit the comment author’s site while they type their comment and retrieve their most recent blog posts, which can be included with their comment when they click the submit button.
(CommentLuv Pro version can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your website.)
Go here to learn more about this great plugin:
Social Link Machine
(SocialLinkMachine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social Link Machine is a plugin for WordPress that lets you automatically syndicate and drip-feed your content, build diverse anchor text backlinks, include relevant videos and images, and 2nd-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – syndicate your content automatically to over 30 traffic-generating sites)
With Social Link Machine installed, you can automatically drip-feed your content to many traffic-generating platforms, such as:
- Social Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Bitly, Linkagogo, Plurk, Reddit, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blogger, Rebel Mouse, Tumblr, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Google Plus, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- Document Sharing: e.g. Issuu, Scribd, etc.
Go here to learn more about this handy plugin: SocialLinkMachine
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 written a detailed article on social media tracking tools and technologies that you may want to check out here:
The above are just some examples of the many content distribution plugins that are available to WordPress users.
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 your website and plugins have been configured and fully set up, all you then have to do to automatically generate more web traffic is publish fresh content regularly.
If you need great content ideas for your website or blog, we recommend subscribing to our email training course on growing your business online with content marketing here:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the process. This step is addressed in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part Four
To read more, click here:
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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