Welcome to Part Four of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to create an automated web traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
So far, here is what we have covered in this article series:
In Part One of this series, we explain why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is post web content on a regular basis to bring more traffic!)
In Part 2, we discuss critical setup decisions. We help you understand 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 site is built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part 3, we looked at the configuration phase of the blueprint.
In this step, we configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 you will configure all the settings that can affect your website’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part 4, we discuss ways to automate your traffic using WordPress plugins.
Why Automating The Traffic-Getting Process Makes Sense
Depending on which business marketing guru you get your advice from, you could end up trying to spend an hour or two (or more) per day promoting your business on social media while also trying to run your business, creating content and managing your online presence.
Most business owners lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts recommend. If you are spending all of your time checking Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter in addition to writing articles for your blog or website, how will you get anything in your business done?
(Keeping a business up and running is how most small business owners spend their working hours. Image source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many businesses spend most of their time just keeping 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.
Research done by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- Almost half of all businesses surveyed spent at least six hours each 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 research was conducted today, the figures 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 consumed the most time online.
(Small businesses spend more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Source: VerticalResponse)
As small businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time on online marketing in order to compete and survive, this leaves even less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other important areas …
(Businesses with limited time, resources, and marketing budgets and many different areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
One other thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time promoting and marketing your business on various social media sites, all of your efforts are going into virtual real estate that you have no control over. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or StumbleUpon. These companies can and will make decisions that can dramatically impact your business without first consulting you. Why invest so much effort and time building a business on rented real estate? With WordPress (self-hosted), you can have complete control of your own real estate and publish your content automatically to other online accounts.
Automating systems and process to leverage time and increase productivity is not new. Businesses 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 resources, time, and budgets. For example:
- Which channels do you invest more of your efforts, time, and your budget on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.) while ignoring your own website?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to include in your marketing strategy?
The Benefits Of Automating The Web Traffic Generation With WordPress
What I’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective method that lets you automate the traffic-getting process 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 costs,
- Determine which marketing channels you should invest more of your efforts, time, and your budget on,
- Invest most of your time 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 recommend avoiding black hat techniques, websites, software, and anything that violates the terms of service and policies of sites like Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc..
(Web traffic automation doesn’t require the use of black hat techniques!)
What we are focusing in this article series is not to game online services or flaunt their terms of service, but to show you how to 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, human 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 be strategic with your limited time, resources, and budget.
So, instead of choosing this approach …
(Posting content to different marketing channels individually is 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 once, and automate the distribution of your content to all other channels.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social media sites and social bookmarking sites,
- Distribute content (and comments) automatically 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 get all of this done?
Simple … first, set up your website or blog as shown in Part Two. Then, get it configured as shown in Part Three. After all this is in place, you then automate your content distribution with 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 Traffic System – Traffic-Getting Plugins
Let’s take a look now at a number of WordPress plugins that can:
- Syndicate content to social sites and social bookmarking sites
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content automatically to other sites via RSS
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and more as soon as you publish your content using a WordPress plugin like JetPack.
Download URL: https://jetpack.com/
Jetpack is a free WordPress plugin with many great functions.
After Jetpack has been installed, you will need to connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate a feature called Publicize …
(Activate the Publicize feature on Jetpack)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, LinkedIn, and more …
(Distribute your content automatically to several social media sites.)
After all settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize options appear in the Publish area.)
Now, whenever you publish new content, it will automatically get shared on all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as you publish, your content is automatically syndicated online.)
Visit the plugin site to learn more about using this plugin: Jetpack
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The native WordPress commenting function allows your blog readers to engage with your website, post comments, reply to other users and engage with your content.
You can enhance the WordPress native commenting feature using a number of third-party plugins that integrate your comments with social media, helping to share and spread your content online.
For example, using a plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version) can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your site. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social rewards like adding twitter handles to comments, ability to use keywords in the username, search-indexable backlinks, and social enticements for sharing your content. This plugin will visit the site of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their most recent blog posts, which can be included at the bottom of their comment when they click submit.
(CommentLuv Pro version can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your site.)
Go here to learn more about this powerful plugin:
SocialLinkMachine
(SocialLinkMachine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
SocialLinkMachine is a plugin for WordPress that lets you automatically syndicate your content to many social platforms, build diverse anchor text backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and create social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social Link Machine – syndicate your content to dozens of online sites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate and drip-feed your content to dozens of authority platforms, such as:
- Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Bitly, Diigo, Kippt, Zotero, etc.
- Blogs: e.g. Livejournal, Rebel Mouse, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- PDF Sharing Platforms: e.g. Docdroid, Sendspace, etc.
Go here to learn more about the benefits of this plugin: Social Link Machine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (so you can get actionable information about your content distribution efforts), we have written a comprehensive article where we explore many social media monitoring tools and technologies that are worth knowing about. Go here for more information:
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: Automated Content Distribution Phase – Summary
Once your site and plugins have been set up and configured, all you have to do is add great content on a consistent basis to automatically drive traffic organically.
We have created an entire email course designed to help you come up with endless content for your website or blog:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the process. This step is addressed in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Part 4
To read the rest of this article, click here:
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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