Welcome to Part Four of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to create an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
So far, we have covered the following in this series:
In Part 1, we provided an overview of the traffic automation process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do is post great content on a consistent basis to begin attracting more traffic!)
In Part 2, we focused on critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to get started 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 website was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part Three, we discuss configuring the system.
Here, we configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part Three you learn how to configure all the settings that affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In Part Four, we look at ways to automate traffic generation using a number of WordPress plugins.
Why It Makes Sense To Automate Your Traffic-Getting Process
Depending on which online marketing expert you talk to, you could find yourself trying to spend a couple of hours or more per day promoting your business on social media while also trying to run your business, creating content and managing your online presence.
Many small business owners simply lack the time, human resources and financial means to run a full-time marketing and content creation department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts advise doing. If you spent half a day checking Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn in addition to planning and writing content for your blog or website, how would anything in your business get done?
(Keeping their business up and running is how most small businesses spend their working hours. Image 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 stay competitive and grow 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 6 hours per week on social media (most of the other businesses surveyed that used social media 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 conducted today, the figures would most likely be significantly higher.
- More than half of all small 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.
(Small businesses spend more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Source: VerticalResponse)
As 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 important areas …
(Businesses with limited marketing budgets, resources, and time and many areas to focus on have to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
Another thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time promoting and marketing your business on a number of social sites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. These companies can make decisions that can dramatically affect your business without first consulting you. Why invest so much effort and time building content on rented real estate? With WordPress (self-hosted), you can have complete control of your own real estate and distribute your content automatically to other online accounts.
Investing in automation to save time and increase productivity is nothing new. Businesses have been doing it ever since the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the exponential growth marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for business owners and business managers, especially for those with limited budgets, resources, and time. For example:
- Which marketing channels should you focus more of your time, budget, and your efforts on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that you ultimately have no control over (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, 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 we’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective strategy for automating your traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this formula, you will be able to:
- Save time creating content for your website 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 efforts, budget, and time 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 strongly recommend staying away from all black hat methods, websites, tools, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of services like LinkedIn, Google, Facebook, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not need to involve using 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 in order to leverage your time and marketing efforts, and get additional exposure online from websites 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, most businesses lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online experts recommend doing. What you want to do, then, is work smart within your limitations.
So, instead of choosing this approach, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to different marketing channels is very time-consuming!)
Why not opt for 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 content once, and automate your content distribution to all other marketing channels.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social services and bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute content (and comments) 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 do all of this?
Simple … first, set up your WordPress website or blog as explained in Part 2. Then, expertly configure it as explained in Part Three. Once all of this is in place, you can then automate your content distribution using plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at some traffic-generation WordPress plugins that can help:
- Post content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking sites
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Post content automatically via RSS to other web properties
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Google+, 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 great features.
After Jetpack has been installed, you will need to connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account set up in Part Three …
(Make sure the Jetpack plugin is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Jetpack plugin – Publicize feature)
You can share your posts on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, GooglePlus, and more …
(Share your posts automatically on several social media sites.)
After configuring all account and plugin settings, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account options show in your Publish section.)
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 shared online.)
The Jetpack plugin provides you with a hands-free, automated way to create more exposure for your content online on social websites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The WordPress commenting function lets your blog readers engage with your website, post new comments, reply to existing comments and engage with your content.
You can enhance the WordPress native commenting feature using 3rd-party commenting plugins that integrate your comments with social media, helping to spread and share them online.
For example, with a plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version), you can create more user engagement on your site. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social reward features like ability to use keywords in the name, the ability to add twitter handles to comments, social enticements for sharing your content, and backlinks. This plugin will visit the site of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which can be included with their comment after clicking submit.
(CommentLuv Premium version can help attract more comments and web traffic and create more user engagement on your web site.)
To learn more about using this plugin, visit this website:
SocialLinkMachine
(Social Link Machine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
SocialLinkMachine is a plugin for WordPress that allows you to automatically syndicate and drip-feed content, build backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and second-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – drip-feed content automatically to dozens of authority websites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically drip-feed your content to dozens of authority platforms, such as:
- Social Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Deviantart, Diigo, Kippt, Stumbleupon, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blogger, Overblog, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Facebook, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- Document Sharing Platforms: e.g. Issuu, Sendspace, etc.
To learn more about using this plugin, visit this site: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (so you can get useful information about your content distribution efforts), we have written a comprehensive article about social media monitoring tools that are worth knowing about. Go here to learn more about this:
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 Blueprint: Content Distribution Phase – Summary
Once you have your website or blog and plugins set up and configured, all you have to do then to automatically begin attracting more web traffic is publish new content on a consistent basis.
If you need endless ideas for content that you can post on your site, we recommend subscribing to our FREE email training series on content marketing here:
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 covered in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Part 4
To continue reading, click here:
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