Welcome to Part Four of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to create an automated web traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
So far, we have covered the following in this article series:
In Part 1, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to begin bringing traffic is add new content consistently!)
In Part Two, we focus on critical setup decisions. We help you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part 3, we look at the configuration phase.
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 (hosting, WordPress and external) that can affect your site’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part Four, we will show you how to set up various plugins that can bring visitors automatically to your website just by publishing web content on a regular basis.
Why It Makes Sense To Automate The Traffic-Getting Process
Depending on which marketing expert you get your advice from, you could end up spending an hour or two (or more) every day promoting your business on social media while also running your business, creating content and managing your online presence.
Many businesses 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 prescribe. If you are spending half your day checking Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn in addition to researching and writing articles for your blog or website, how can anything else in your business get done?
(Small businesses spend most of their time simply keeping their businesses up and running. Infographic source: NFIB)
Many businesses spend most of their time simply keeping their businesses up and running. In addition to running a business, there’s also sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to remain competitive and make sales in order to survive.
A study of small businesses conducted in 2012 by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- Almost half of all businesses surveyed spent around 6 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 businesses surveyed spent 1-3 hours or more creating a blog post.
- Finding and posting content for social media consumed the most time online.
(Small businesses are spending more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Source: VerticalResponse.com)
As businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time promoting and marketing themselves online as a matter of business survival and competition, this leaves less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other areas …
(Businesses with limited resources, time, and marketing budget and many areas to focus on have to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
Another important thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time marketing and promoting your business on various social media sites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. These companies can make decisions that can significantly impact your business without requiring your input. Why invest so much effort and time building content on someone else’s asset? With a self-hosted WordPress site, you can have complete control of your own real estate and publish your content automatically to other sites.
Automating processes to save time and increase productivity is not new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it ever since the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the increasing availability of hundreds of new channels for promoting and marketing a business creates a number of dilemmas for business owners, especially for those with limited time, budget, and resources. For example:
- Which of these channels do you invest more time, budget, and efforts on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that you ultimately have little to no control over (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) while neglecting 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 Generation With WordPress
What we’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective method for automating your web traffic generation with WordPress.
With this formula, you will be able to:
- Save time creating content for your website or blog and social media,
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary web marketing costs,
- Determine which marketing channels you should invest more time, efforts, and your budget on,
- Invest most of your efforts building your own asset 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 techniques, software, websites, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of sites like Google, YouTube, Facebook, etc..
(Automating your web traffic does not require the use of black hat methods!)
What we are focusing here is not to manipulate web services or break their terms of service, but to show you how to 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
We’ve just seen in the previous section how many businesses lack the time, human resources and budget 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 budget, resources, and time.
So, instead of choosing this approach, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to individual marketing channels is very time-consuming!)
Why not use this time-saving method 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 one-time, and automate the distribution of your content to all other services.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social media sites and bookmarking sites,
- Distribute content (and comments) automatically 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 site as shown in Part Two. Then, configure things as explained in Part Three. After all this is in place, you can then automate various processes using 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 look now at some traffic-generation plugins that can help:
- Syndicate content to social media sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Post comments automatically to other blogs
- Post content to other sites via RSS feeds
Jetpack Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, LinkedIn 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 loads of useful features.
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 Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, and more …
(Share your posts on various social media sites.)
After configuring all plugin and account settings, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account settings displays in the publishing section.)
Now, whenever you publish new content, it will automatically get shared on every account you have set up …
(As soon as you publish, your posts are automatically syndicated online.)
Jetpack provides a hands-free, automated way to create more exposure online for your content on social media websites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
WordPress has a built-in commenting system that allows your blog readers to engage with your website, post new comments, reply to existing comments and participate in discussions.
You can enhance the WordPress default commenting feature with a third-party commenting plugin like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrates with social media, helping to share and spread them online.
For example, using a plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version) can help make your site more attractive to commenters by offering them a wider choice of backlinks if they plus1, like, or tweet your content. This plugin will visit the website or blog of the comment author while they are entering their comment and retrieve their last blog posts, which they can choose to include at the bottom of their comment after clicking the submit button.
(CommentLuv can attract more comments and create more user engagement on your website or blog.)
Go here for more information about using this powerful plugin:
Social Link Machine
(Social LinkMachine – Content distribution plugin)
Social LinkMachine is a set-and-forget plugin for WordPress that lets you automatically syndicate and drip-feed content, build diverse anchor text backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social Link Machine – drip-feed content to many authority websites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate and drip-feed content to over 30 social websites, such as:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Bitly, Diigo, Kippt, Zotero, etc.
- Blogs: e.g. Livejournal, Overblog, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Google Plus, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- Document Sharing Platforms: e.g. Issuu, Gett, etc.
Visit the plugin website to learn more about this plugin: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (in order to get useful information about your content distribution campaigns), we have created a comprehensive article where we explore over 30 social media measurement tools and technologies that are worth checking out and knowing about. Go here for more info:
The above are just some examples of the many plugins that WordPress makes available for automating 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 Automation Blueprint: Content Syndication Phase – Summary
Once you have your website or blog and plugins fully set up and configured, all you need to do is add fresh content consistently to automatically start attracting web traffic organically.
We have created an entire email email-based training course designed to help you never run out of content ideas for your site:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the web-traffic generation process. This step is addressed in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Section 4
To read more, click here:
***
"I love the way your email series "Infinite Web Content Creation Training Series" is documented and presented. It is very absorbing and captivating. The links and tutorials are interesting and educational. This has motivated me to rewrite my content following the concepts I am learning from the email series." - Mani Raju, www.fortuneinewaste.com
***