Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to create an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
So far, here is what we have covered in this series:
In Part One, we described the traffic automation process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to begin attracting more web traffic is publish web content on a consistent basis!)
In Part 2, we discuss 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 website was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part Three, we focused on important configuration decisions.
In this step, we configure all the settings (hosting, internal and external) that can affect your site’s traffic-getting ability …
(In Part 3 you learn how to configure all the settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In Part 4, we discuss ways to automate the traffic system with plugins.
Why You Should Automate The Traffic-Getting Process
Depending on which marketing guru you talk to, you could end up trying to spend 1-2 hours or more every day promoting your business on social media while also trying to run your business, creating content and managing your web presence.
Many small businesses lack the time, human resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts are recommending. If you were to spend half a day posting updates on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn in addition to researching and writing articles for your blog or website, how could you get anything in your business done?
(Small business owners spend most of their working hours keeping their businesses up and running. Infographic source: NFIB)
Small business owners spend most of their working hours keeping their businesses up and running. On top of this, there’s sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to stay competitive and grow in order to survive.
Research done in 2012 by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- 43% of all small businesses surveyed spent six or more hours each 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 survey was done 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 consumed the most time online.
(Small businesses are spending more time marketing and promoting themselves online. Source: VerticalResponse.com)
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 areas …
(Businesses with limited marketing budgets, resources, and time and many areas to focus on have to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
One other important thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time promoting and marketing your business on a number of social websites, all of your efforts are going into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube. These sites often will make decisions that affect your business without first consulting you. Why invest so much time and effort building a business on someone else’s asset? With a self-hosted WordPress site, you can control your own virtual real estate and distribute your content automatically to other sites.
Automating business systems and processes to save time and increase productivity is nothing new. Businesses have been doing it ever since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the increasing availability of so many new marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners and marketing managers, especially for those with limited time, marketing budget, and resources. For example:
- Which of these 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 belong to other businesses (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, 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 Your Traffic-Getting Process With WordPress
What I’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective strategy for automating your 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 channels you should focus more time, efforts, and budget 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 avoiding black hat strategies, tools, sites, and anything designed to manipulate or violate the policies and terms of service of sites like Google, YouTube, Facebook, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not have to involve the use of black hat techniques!)
The focus of this series of articles is not to manipulate web services or bypass their terms of service, but to show you how to 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
We’ve just seen that most businesses lack the time, human resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts advise doing. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited resources, time, and budget.
So, instead of doing this …
(Posting content to different marketing channels can be very time-consuming!)
Why not do this 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 the distribution of your content to all other channels.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social channels 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 WordPress website or blog as explained in Part Two. Then, configure everything as shown in Part 3. After all 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 System – Traffic-Getting Plugins
Let’s take a look now at a number of plugins that can be used to:
- Post content to social media sites and social bookmarking websites
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content to other web properties via RSS feeds
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, LinkedIn, GooglePlus 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 loads of great functions.
After Jetpack has been installed, connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account you set up in Part Three …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate a feature called Publicize …
(Jetpack plugin – Publicize)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and more …
(Share your content automatically on several social networks.)
After configuring all of the plugin and account settings, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize details show in the publishing box.)
Now, as soon as you publish new content, it will automatically be shared on every account you have set up …
(As soon as you publish, your new content will be automatically syndicated online.)
Jetpack provides a hands-free, automated way to create more exposure for your content online on social networks.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The built-in WordPress commenting feature lets your site users engage with your web site, post new comments, reply to other users and engage with your content.
You can expand the WordPress native commenting feature using a number of third-party plugins like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrate with social media, helping to share and spread them online.
For example, using a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version) can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your website. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social reward features like social enticements for sharing content, SEO backlinks, ability to use keywords in the name, and the ability to add twitter usernames to comments. This plugin will visit the website or blog of the comment author while they enter their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which they can include at the bottom of their comment when they click submit.
(CommentLuv Pro version can attract more comments and visitors and improve user engagement on your website or blog.)
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
Social Link Machine
(Social LinkMachine – Set-and-forget content distribution plugin for WordPress)
Social Link Machine is a set-and-forget WordPress plugin that lets you automatically drip-feed your content, build diverse anchor text backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social Link Machine – syndicate content automatically to many traffic-generating sites)
With SocialLinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate your content to many online sites, including:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Bitly, Diigo, Kippt, Reddit, etc.
- Blogs: e.g. Blogger, Sett, Tribe, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- PDF Sharing: e.g. Issuu, Scribd, etc.
To learn more about this plugin, go here: SocialLinkMachine
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), go here for a detailed article on social media measurement tools that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing campaigns:
The above are just some 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 System: Automated Content Sharing Phase – Summary
Once your website and plugins have been configured and set up, all you need to do is post content consistently to automatically attract traffic organically.
We have created a complete email course aimed at helping you never run out of content ideas for your website or blog:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize as much of the process as you can. This step is covered in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section 4
To continue reading this article, click on the link below:
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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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