Welcome to Part Four of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to turn a site into an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
So far, we have covered the following in this series:
In Part 1 of this series, we explain why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is add content on a consistent basis to start generating more web traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing website was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part 3, we discuss the configuration phase of the traffic automation system.
Here, we configure all the settings that can affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 you will configure all the settings that can affect your site’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part Four, we will show you how to set up various plugins that can drive visitors automatically to your website or blog.
Why You Should Consider Automating Your Traffic-Getting Process
Depending on which marketing guru you talk to, you could find yourself spending an hour or two every day (or more) posting content on social media.
Most business owners simply lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts are prescribing. If you were to spend hours posting updates on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn in addition to writing articles for your website or blog, how would anything else in your business get done?
(Keeping a business up and running is how most small businesses spend their time. Image source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many business owners spend most of their working hours just keeping their businesses up and running. In addition to running a business, there’s sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to stay competitive and make sales in order to survive.
A study of small businesses conducted by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- Almost half of all small businesses surveyed spent 6 or more hours per week on social media (the other half 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 numbers would probably be 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 their most time-consuming online activity.
(Small businesses are spending more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Image source: VerticalResponse.com)
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 areas …
(Businesses with limited marketing budget, resources, and time 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 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 sites can and will make decisions that impact 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 website, you can control your own real estate and post your content automatically to other sites.
Automating processes to leverage time is not new. Businesses have been doing it ever since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the exponential growth marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for business owners, especially for those with limited budgets, resources, and time. For example:
- Which of these marketing channels do you invest more of your budget, efforts, and time on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) while ignoring the benefits of building content on your own domain?
- 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 I’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula that lets you automate your traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this strategy, you will be able to:
- Save time creating content for your website or blog and social media,
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary online marketing costs,
- Determine which marketing channels you should invest more time, budget, and efforts 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 strongly urge you to avoid using black hat solutions, sites, methods, and anything that violates the terms of service and policies of services like Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not require the use of black hat methods!)
What we are focusing in this article is to show you how to be smart with your resources and automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and marketing 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, most small business owners lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online experts recommend. What you want to do, then, is to be strategic and work smart within your limited resources.
So, instead of doing this …
(Posting content to individual channels is extremely time-consuming!)
Why not use this approach 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 services and bookmarking sites,
- Distribute content (and comments) automatically 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 website or blog as shown in Part 2. Then, expertly configure your site settings as shown in Part Three. Once all of this is in place, you then connect all of the dots using plugins like the ones discussed in the section below.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Traffic Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at a few traffic-generating plugins that can be used to:
- Post content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking sites
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Post content automatically to other sites via RSS
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, LinkedIn, GooglePlus and more as soon as you publish new content using a plugin like JetPack.
Download URL: https://jetpack.com/
Jetpack is a free WordPress plugin with many useful functions.
After installing Jetpack, connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account you set up in Part 3 …
(Make sure that Jetpack is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Activate the Publicize feature on Jetpack)
You can share your posts on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, and more …
(Share your content automatically on various social media accounts.)
After configuring all of the account and plugin settings, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize options displayed in the 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 content is published, it will be automatically shared online.)
Jetpack provides you with a hands-free, automated way to get more exposure for your content online on social media sites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The native WordPress commenting system allows your blog readers to engage with your site, post comments, reply to existing comments and participate in discussions.
You can enhance the WordPress native commenting feature with a 3rd-party plugin that integrates with social media, helping to spread and share them online.
For example, using a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version) can help make your blog more attractive to commenters by offering them a choice of backlinks if they like, plus1, or tweet your content. This plugin will visit the comment author’s site while they are entering their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which can be included below their comment when they click submit.
(CommentLuv Premium version can attract more comments and create more user engagement on your website or blog.)
To learn more about using this WordPress plugin, visit this website:
SocialLinkMachine
(SocialLinkMachine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social Link Machine is a WordPress plugin that allows you to syndicate your content, build backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and create second-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – drip-feed your content to over 30 online sites)
With Social Link Machine installed, you can automatically syndicate and drip-feed your content to over 30 online sites, such as:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Deviantart, Linkagogo, Plurk, Reddit, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Livejournal, Overblog, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Google Plus, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- PDF Sharing: e.g. Docdroid, Gett, etc.
For more details about the benefits of using this WordPress plugin, go here: Social Link Machine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (in order to get actionable information about your content distribution campaigns), we have created a detailed article listing several social media measurement tools that you may want to check out. Go here for more details:
The above are just a few 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: Content Syndication Stage – Summary
Once your website and plugins have been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do is post great content on a regular basis to automatically drive web traffic.
If you need great content ideas for your web site, we recommend subscribing to our FREE email training series 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 WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Part Four
To read the rest of this article series, 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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