Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to grow your business online automatically using the WordPress CMS.
So far, here is what we have covered in this series:
In Part 1, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to start generating web traffic is add great content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part Three, we discuss the configuration phase of the blueprint.
Here, we configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part Three you learn how to configure all the settings (hosting, WordPress and external) that affect your site’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part 4, we will look at ways to automate the traffic-getting process with plugins.
Why You Should Automate The Traffic Generation Process
Depending on who you talk to, you could end up trying to spend an hour or two every day (or more) promoting your business on social media.
Many businesses lack the time, resources and budget to run a full-time marketing and content creation department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts are advising. If you were to spend most of your time checking LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook in addition to planning and writing articles for your blog or website, how could you get anything in your business done?
(Small businesses spend most of their working hours keeping their businesses up and running. Infographic source: NFIB)
Small businesses spend most of their time simply keeping their businesses up and running. On top of this, there’s also sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to remain competitive and grow in order to survive.
Research done in 2012 by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- Almost half of all small businesses surveyed spent around six 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 research was conducted today, the numbers would most likely be significantly 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.
(Businesses are spending more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic: VerticalResponse.com)
As businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time on online marketing in order to compete and survive, this leaves less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other areas …
(Businesses with limited time, resources, and marketing budget and many areas to focus on need to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
One other thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time 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 LinkedIn. These sites can and will make decisions that can significantly impact your business without prior warning. Why invest so much time and effort building a business on rented real estate? With WordPress (self-hosted), you can control your own virtual real estate and post your content automatically to other online accounts.
Automating business systems and processes to leverage time and increase productivity is not new. Businesses have been doing it since the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the exponential growth channels for promoting and marketing a business creates a number of dilemmas for business owners and marketing managers, especially for those with limited resources, time, and budget. For example:
- Which of these channels should you invest more of your efforts, budget, and time on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that you do not control (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, 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 Your Traffic-Getting Process With WordPress
What we’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective strategy that allows you to automate the traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this method, you will be able to:
- Save time creating content for your website and social media,
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary online marketing channels,
- Determine which marketing channels you should invest more budget, efforts, and time 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 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 strategies, sites, software, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of companies like Pinterest, Google, Facebook, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not need to involve the use of black hat methods!)
The focus of this article series is to show you how to be smart with your resources and 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 business owners lack the time, 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 budget, time, and resources.
So, instead of posting content to services individually, which is extremely time-consuming …
(Posting content to different marketing channels one at a time is extremely 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 your content distribution to all other marketing channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social media channels and bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute content (and comments) 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 2. Then, get it all configured as shown in Part Three. After all this is in place, you can then connect all of the dots with plugins like the ones listed in the section below.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Traffic Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at a number of traffic-generating WordPress plugins that can:
- Distribute content to social sites and social bookmarking websites
- Post comments automatically to other blogs
- Post content automatically to other online properties via RSS feeds
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ 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 your WordPress.com account …
(Make sure that Jetpack is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Activate the Publicize feature on Jetpack)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and more …
(Publicize your posts automatically to various social media networks.)
After configuring all of the account and plugin settings, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize details displays in your publishing box.)
Now, whenever you publish new content, it will automatically get shared online to every account you have set up …
(As soon as new content is published, it will be automatically distributed online.)
Visit the plugin website to learn more about the benefits of using this handy plugin: Jetpack by WordPress.com
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The native WordPress commenting function lets your blog readers engage with your website or blog, post new comments, reply to existing comments and participate in discussions.
You can enhance the WordPress default commenting feature using 3rd-party commenting plugins like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrate with social media, helping to spread and share your content online.
For example, using a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version) can help make your blog more attractive to commenters by offering them a choice of backlinks if they tweet, plus1, or like your content. This plugin will visit the site of the comment author while they are typing their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which they can include with their comment after clicking submit.
(CommentLuv Premium version can help attract more comments and improve user engagement on your web site.)
To learn more about using this plugin, go here:
SocialLinkMachine
(SocialLinkMachine – Content distribution plugin)
Social Link Machine is a WordPress plugin that allows you to automatically drip-feed your content to many online sites, build backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social Link Machine – syndicate and drip-feed content automatically to many online websites)
With SocialLinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate and drip-feed content to many online websites, such as:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Delicious, Folkd, Kippt, Scoop.it, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogs: e.g. Blog.com, Sett, Tribe, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Facebook, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- Document Sharing: e.g. Docdroid, Sendspace, etc.
For more details about using this plugin, visit this website: Social Link Machine
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), or if you want to learn more about social media measurement tools that are worth checking out and knowing about, refer to this article:
The above are just some 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 System: Automated Content Distribution Process – Summary
Once your site and plugins have been expertly configured and set up, all you then need to do is post great content regularly to automatically begin attracting more web traffic organically.
We have created an entire email email-based training course designed to help you come up with limitless content for posting to your website or blog:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize as much of the process as can be improved. This step is addressed in the next article in our WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section 4
To read more, click here:
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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