Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to drive new traffic automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS.
So far, here is what we have covered in this article series:
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to attract traffic is post content consistently!)
In Part Two, we look at the setup phase of the traffic automation process. We help you understand the best way to start 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 website was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part Three, we focus on the configuration phase.
In this step, we configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 you learn how to configure all the settings (hosting, WordPress and external) that affect your site’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part Four, we look at ways to automate the traffic-getting process with WordPress plugins.
Why Automate The Traffic-Getting Process?
Depending on who you get your advice from, you could find yourself trying to spend 1-2 hours or more every day promoting your business on social media.
Most small businesses simply lack the time, human resources and budget to employ the services of a full-time marketing department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts recommend. If you spent all of your time posting updates on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter in addition to planning and writing content for your website or blog, how would you get anything else in your business done?
(Small business owners spend most of their time keeping their businesses up and running. Image source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Small businesses spend most of their time 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.
Research conducted by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- 43% of all small businesses surveyed spent six or more hours per week on social media (the other half 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 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 their most time-consuming online activity.
(Businesses spend more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Source: VerticalResponse.com)
As small businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time marketing and promoting themselves online as a matter of business survival and competition, this puts more and more pressure on businesses to prioritize their time on other important areas …
(Businesses with limited time, marketing budget, and resources and many different areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
Another thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time social websites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you have no control over. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or StumbleUpon. These sites can make decisions that can dramatically affect your business without requiring your input. Why invest so much time and effort building content on rented real estate? With a self-hosted WordPress website, you can have complete control of your own virtual real estate and publish your content automatically to other online properties.
Investing in business automation to save time and increase productivity is not new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the increased availability of so many new online marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners and marketing managers, especially for those with limited resources, marketing budget, and time. For example:
- Which channels should you invest more time, budget, and efforts on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.) while neglecting your own domain?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to market and promote your business on?
The Benefits Of Automating The Traffic-Getting Process With WordPress
What we’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective method for automating the web traffic generation 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 channels,
- Determine which marketing channels you should invest more time, budget, and efforts on,
- Invest most of your time and 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 recommend avoiding black hat sites, strategies, software, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of services like Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc..
(Automating your web traffic doesn’t have to involve the use of black hat techniques!)
The focus of this article is 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 frequented by your target audience.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
We’ve just seen that most 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 budget, resources, and time.
So, instead of posting content to different marketing channels individually, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to different marketing channels one by one is extremely time-consuming!)
Why not opt for this time-saving strategy 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 marketing channels.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social media sites and bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute comments and content 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 this done?
Simple … first, set up your WordPress website or blog as explained 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 like the ones shown in the following section.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic System – Traffic Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at a number of traffic-generation plugins that can be used to:
- Syndicate content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking sites
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Post content automatically to other websites via RSS feeds
Jetpack WordPress Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Google+, 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 installing Jetpack, you will need to connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account (set up in Part Three.) …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Jetpack plugin – Publicize feature)
Configure this section to automatically share your posts on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and more …
(Publicize your content to various social media sites.)
After all of the account and plugin settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account options displays in the publishing area.)
Now, as soon as you publish new content, it will automatically get shared on every account you have set up …
(As soon as new content is published, it will be automatically distributed online.)
This is a hands-free, automated way to get more exposure online for your content on social media websites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The WordPress commenting system lets your site users engage with your website, post new comments, reply to other users and engage with your content as part of a social community.
You can enhance the WordPress native commenting feature with a 3rd-party plugin that integrates your comments with social media, helping to share and spread your content online.
For example, with a plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version), you can make your site more attractive to commenters by offering them a wider choice of backlinks if they like, tweet, or +1 your post. This plugin will visit the website of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their last blog posts, which they can choose to include below their comment after clicking submit.
(CommentLuv Premium version can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your website.)
For more details about the benefits of this handy plugin, go here:
Social Link Machine
(Social Link Machine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social LinkMachine is a set-and-forget WordPress plugin that allows you to automatically syndicate content to over 30 social sites, build anchor text backlinks, include relevant videos and images, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – drip-feed your content to many social sites)
With Social Link Machine installed, you can automatically syndicate your content to many authority platforms, like:
- Social Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Bitly, Folkd, Plurk, Reddit, etc.
- Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blog.com, Overblog, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- Document Sharing Platforms: e.g. Issuu, Scribd, etc.
For more details about this handy plugin, go here: Social Link Machine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (in order to get useful information about your content distribution efforts), we have written a detailed article where we explore many social media monitoring tools and technologies that will help you keep track of online trends, monitor competitor activity, see what online conversations are taking place that affect your business, etc, see what online conversations are taking place that could affect your business,etc. To learn more, visit this page:
The above are just a few 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 Blueprint: Automated Content Distribution Phase – Summary
Once you have your website or blog and plugins configured and set up, all you then have to do to begin bringing more traffic is publish fresh content on a consistent basis.
If you need help coming up with ideas for content that you can post on your site, we recommend subscribing to our FREE email training series on growing your business with content marketing here:
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 System series.
This is the end of Part 4
To read more, click on the link below:
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