Welcome to Part Four of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to turn your site into an automated web traffic machine using WordPress.
So far, here is what we have covered in this article series:
In Part 1, we provide an overview of the traffic automation process, and explain why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to start driving traffic is post content consistently!)
In Part Two, we discuss the setup phase of this blueprint. We explain the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing website was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part 3, we looked at important configuration decisions.
In this step, we configure all the settings that affect your site’s traffic-getting ability …
(In Part 3 you learn how to configure all the settings (hosting, internal and external) that can affect your website’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part 4, you will learn how to set up various WordPress plugins that can help drive web traffic automatically to your site.
Why Automate The Traffic Generation Process?
Depending on which expert you get your advice from, you could find yourself spending an hour a day (or more) promoting your business on social media in addition to trying to run your business, creating content and managing your web presence.
Many small businesses simply lack the time, human 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 are recommending. If you spent half a day checking LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook in addition to planning and writing content for your blog or website, how would anything in your business ever get done?
(Keeping their business up and running is how most small businesses spend their working hours. Infographic source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many 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 stay competitive and grow in order to survive.
A study of small businesses conducted in 2012 by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- 43% of all businesses surveyed spent at least six 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 figures would probably be higher.
- More than half of all 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.
(Small businesses spend more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic source: VerticalResponse)
As businesses spend more time promoting and marketing themselves online in order to compete and survive, this leaves less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other equally important areas …
(Businesses with limited time, marketing budget, and resources and many different business areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
One other thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time marketing and promoting your business on various 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 YouTube. These companies often will make decisions that can significantly affect your business without requiring your input. Why invest so much time and effort building content on rented real estate? With WordPress, you can control your own real estate and post your content automatically to other online accounts.
Automating systems and process to save time is nothing new. Businesses have been doing it ever since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the availability of so many new online marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for business owners and marketing managers, especially for those with limited time, resources, and budget. For example:
- Which of these marketing channels should you invest more efforts, budget, and time on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. YouTube, LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc.) while ignoring 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 The Traffic-Getting Process With WordPress
What I’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula that allows you to automate the traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this formula, you will be able to:
- Save time creating content for your website or blog and other marketing channels (e.g. 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 building your own asset 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 recommend staying away from all black hat methods, tools, sites, and anything designed to flaunt or violate the terms of service and policies of sites like YouTube, Google, Facebook, etc..
(Automating your web traffic does not require the use of black hat techniques!)
What we are focusing here is not to game web services or bypass their terms of service, but to show you how to be smart with your limited resources and automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and 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
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 experts advise. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited budget, resources, and time.
So, instead of choosing this time-consuming approach …
(Posting content to different channels is extremely time-consuming!)
Why not use this time-saving 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 channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social media channels 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 get all of this done?
Simple … first, set up your site as shown in Part 2. Then, configure things as explained in Part Three. Once all of this is in place, you then connect all of the dots with plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at some traffic-generating plugins that can help:
- Post content to social sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Syndicate content via RSS feeds to other online properties
Jetpack by WordPress.com
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ 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 great functions.
After installing Jetpack, connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account you set up in Part Three …
(Make sure that Jetpack is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate a feature called Publicize …
(Activate the Publicize feature)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and more …
(Share your posts on various social sites.)
After all of the settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize details in your post publishing area.)
Now, whenever you publish a new post, it will automatically be shared online to all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as posts are published, they are automatically syndicated online.)
The Jetpack plugin provides you with an automated and hands-free way to create more exposure online for your content on social networks.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The WordPress native commenting function lets your blog readers engage with your website, post new comments, reply to other users and participate in discussions as part of an online community.
You can enhance the WordPress default commenting feature using 3rd-party plugins like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrate your comments with social media, helping to share and spread your content online.
For example, a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version) can help attract more comments and create more user engagement on your web site. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social reward features like using keywords in the user name, social enticements for sharing your content, the ability to add twitter names to comments, and backlinks. This plugin will visit the comment author’s site while they type their comment and retrieve their last blog posts, which can be included with their comment after clicking the submit button.
(CommentLuv can encourage a greater level of commenting and improve user engagement on your site.)
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
SocialLinkMachine
(Social Link Machine – Content distribution plugin)
SocialLinkMachine is a plugin that lets you drip-feed content, build backlinks, include relevant videos and images, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – syndicate and drip-feed your content to many social platforms)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically drip-feed your content to over 30 authority platforms, including:
- Social Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Bitly, Diigo, Kippt, Reddit, etc.
- Blogs: e.g. Livejournal, Sett, Tumblr, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Facebook, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- PDF Sharing Platforms: e.g. Docdroid, Sendspace, etc.
To learn more about this WordPress plugin, visit the plugin site: Social Link Machine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (so you can get actionable information about your content marketing efforts), we have written 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 can affect your business,etc. Go here for more information:
The above are just some examples of the many content distribution plugins that WordPress makes available.
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 Sharing Process – Summary
Once your website and plugins have been configured and fully set up, all you then have to do is post web content on a consistent basis to automatically start driving traffic organically.
We have created an entire email email-based training course designed to help you come up with unlimited content for posting to your web site:
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 section of the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section 4
To continue reading about this topic, click on the link below:
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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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