Welcome to Part 4 of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new traffic automatically to your website using WordPress.
So far, here is what we have covered in this series:
In Part One, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to begin attracting more web traffic is add content on a regular basis!)
In Part 2, we focus on the setup phase. 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 is built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In Part 3, we look at the configuration phase of the blueprint.
Here, we configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that affect your site’s traffic-getting ability …
(In Part 3 you learn how to configure all the settings that affect your site’s traffic-getting ability)
In this article, we will show you how to set up various WordPress plugins that can drive new visitors automatically to your site.
Why It Makes Sense To Automate Your Traffic Generation Process
Depending on which online marketing expert you talk to, you could end up investing a couple of hours or more per day posting content on social media while also managing your business, your content and your online presence.
Many small businesses lack the time, human resources and budget to run a full-time marketing and content creation department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts recommend. If you spend hours posting updates on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn in addition to writing content for your website or blog, how can anything else in your business get done?
(Keeping a business up and running is how most small business owners spend their time. Infographic: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many business owners spend most of their working hours trying to keep 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.
A study of small businesses conducted by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- Almost half of all 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 figures would probably be even 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 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. 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 equally vital areas …
(Businesses with limited resources, budgets, and time and many areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
One other important thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time social media websites, all of your efforts are going into virtual real estate that you have no control over. You don’t own Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. These sites can and will make decisions that can significantly impact your business without requiring your input. Why invest so much effort and time building content on rented real estate? With WordPress, you can have complete control of your own virtual real estate and publish your content automatically to other online properties.
Automating business processes to leverage time and increase productivity is nothing new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it since the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the increasing availability of so many new marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for business owners and business managers, especially for those with limited resources, time, and budget. For example:
- Which of these marketing channels should you focus 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 website?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to include in your marketing strategy?
The Benefits Of Automating The Traffic Generation Process With WordPress
What we’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula that allows you to automate the traffic generation process with WordPress.
With this strategy, 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 budget, time, and your efforts on,
- Invest most of your time and efforts building your own asset instead of someone else’s 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 urge you to avoid using black hat websites, solutions, methods, and anything designed to “game” or violate the policies and terms of service of sites like Facebook, YouTube, Google, etc..
(Web traffic automation doesn’t have to involve using black hat techniques!)
What we are focusing in this series of articles is to show you how to be smart with your limited resources and automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and 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
We’ve just seen that most small businesses lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts advise. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited resources, budget, and time.
So, instead of doing this …
(Posting content to different services one at a time can be very time-consuming!)
Why not choose a smarter, time-saving approach like 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 content once, and automate the distribution of your content to all other marketing channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social media services and social bookmarking sites,
- Distribute comments and content 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 get all this done?
Simple … first, set up your WordPress website as described in Part 2. Then, get it configured 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 Web Traffic Automation System – Traffic-Getting Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at a number of WordPress plugins that can be used to:
- Distribute content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking sites
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Post content via RSS feeds to other online properties
Jetpack by WordPress.com
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, LinkedIn and more as soon as you publish your 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 set up in Part 3 …
(Make sure the Jetpack plugin 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, Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, and more …
(Share your content on several social media sites.)
After all settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account settings appear in the publishing area.)
Now, whenever you publish new content, it will automatically be shared online to every account you have set up …
(As soon as new posts are published, they will be automatically shared online.)
This is a hands-free, automated way to get more exposure online for your content on social websites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The WordPress native commenting feature lets your blog readers interact with your web site, post comments, reply to existing comments and participate in discussions.
You can enhance the WordPress built-in commenting feature with a number of third-party plugins like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrate your comments with social media, helping to share and spread your content online.
For example, with a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version), you can create more user engagement on your website. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social reward features like backlinks, the ability to add twitter handles to comments, social enticements for content-sharing, and ability to use keywords in the user name. This plugin will visit the comment author’s website while they are typing their comment and retrieve their last blog posts, which they can include at the bottom of their comment after clicking submit.
(CommentLuv Premium version can help attract more comments and web traffic and improve user engagement on your site.)
Go here to learn more about this plugin:
SocialLinkMachine
(Social Link Machine – Set-and-forget content distribution plugin)
Social Link Machine is a plugin that lets you automatically drip-feed your content to dozens of authority sites, build anchor text backlinks, include relevant YouTube videos and images, and create 2nd-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – syndicate content automatically to many social websites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate and drip-feed your content to dozens of traffic-generating sites, including:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Deviantart, Diigo, Instapaper, Zotero, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Livejournal, Sett, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Google Plus, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- PDF Sharing: e.g. Issuu, Scribd, etc.
Go here to learn more about this plugin: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (so you can get actionable information about your content marketing campaigns), go here for a detailed article on social media measurement tools that will help you keep track of online trends, monitor competitor activity, see what conversations are taking place online that can affect your business, etc, see what conversations are taking place online that affect your business,etc:
The above are just some examples of the many content distribution plugins that WordPress makes available.
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 your site and plugins have been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do then to bring traffic is add content on a regular basis.
If you need help coming up with endless ideas for content that you can post on your website or blog, we recommend subscribing to our FREE email training course on growing your business online with 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 explained in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Part 4
To keep reading about this topic, click on the link below:
- Web Traffic Blueprint Part Five – A Complete Guide To Increasing Your Website Visitors Automatically
***
"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
***