Welcome to Part Four of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a website into an automated web traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
So far, here is what we have covered in this article series:
In Part One, we provided an overview of the traffic automation process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do is add great content on a consistent basis to automatically attract new traffic!)
In Part Two, we focused on the setup phase of the traffic automation system. We helped you understand the best way to get started 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 website was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In Part 3, we discuss the configuration phase.
Here, we configure all the settings (hosting, WordPress and external) that can affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 we explain how to configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In this article, you will learn how to set up various WordPress plugins that can help bring new visitors automatically to your site simply by publishing web content on a consistent basis.
Why It Makes Sense To Automate The Traffic-Getting Process
Depending on which marketing gurus you listen to, you could find yourself trying to spend an hour or two every day (or more) promoting your business on social media.
Most businesses lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts recommend doing. If you are spending hours posting updates on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn in addition to researching and writing content for your website or blog, how does anything in your business get done?
(Keeping their business running is how most small business owners spend their working hours. Image source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Small businesses spend most of their time trying to keep their businesses up and running. On top of this, there’s sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to remain competitive and grow in order to survive.
Marketing research conducted by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- 43% of all small businesses surveyed spent at least six hours per week on social media (the other half of businesses surveyed using 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 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 consumed the most time online.
(Small businesses spend more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic: VerticalResponse)
As 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 budgets, resources, and time and many different areas to focus on have to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
Another important thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time social sites, all of your efforts are going into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. These companies can make decisions that impact your business without prior notification. Why invest so much time and effort building content on someone else’s real estate? With a self-hosted WordPress site, you can control your own virtual real estate and distribute your content automatically to other websites.
Automating systems and process to leverage time is not new. Businesses have been doing it since the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the increased availability of so many new channels for marketing and promoting a business online creates a number of dilemmas for business owners and marketing managers, especially for those with limited time, resources, and marketing budgets. For example:
- Which marketing channels should you focus more of your budget, time, and your 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 website?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to include in your marketing strategy?
The Benefits Of Automating Your 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 the traffic generation with WordPress.
With this formula, you will be able to:
- Save time creating web content and other marketing channels (e.g. social media),
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary online marketing channels,
- Determine which channels you should invest more of your 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 urge that you stay away from all black hat tools, techniques, sites, and anything that violates the terms of service and policies of sites like Pinterest, Facebook, Google.
(Automating your web traffic does not need to involve using black hat techniques!)
The focus of this series of articles is not to manipulate web services or bypass 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 sites frequented by your target audience.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
We’ve just seen that most business owners lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many experts are prescribing. 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 services one by one 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 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,
- 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 website or blog as explained in Part 2. Then, expertly configure it as described in Part 3. Once all of this is in place, you can then connect all of the dots with plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Traffic-Getting Plugins
Let’s take a brief look at a few traffic-generating WordPress plugins that can be used to:
- Distribute content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Post content automatically via RSS feeds to other online properties
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and more as soon as you publish your content using a WordPress plugin like JetPack.
Download URL: https://jetpack.com/
Jetpack is a free WordPress plugin with many great functions.
After Jetpack has been installed, 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 a feature called Publicize …
(Jetpack plugin – Publicize)
Configure this section to automatically share your posts on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and more …
(Share your posts on various social sites.)
After configuring all of the plugin and account settings, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account options displays in the post publishing box.)
Now, whenever you publish a new post, it will automatically be shared online to all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as you publish, your posts are automatically shared online.)
To learn more about this powerful plugin, go here: Jetpack by WordPress.com
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The built-in WordPress commenting system allows your blog readers to engage with your site, post new comments, reply to other users and engage with your content as part of a social community.
You can expand the WordPress default commenting feature with 3rd-party plugins that integrate with social media, helping to share and spread your content around.
For example, with a plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version), you can make your site more attractive to commenters by offering them a wider choice of backlinks if they tweet, like, or plus1 your content. This plugin will visit the website of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their most recent blog posts, which can be included at the bottom of their comment after clicking the submit button.
(CommentLuv can attract more comments and traffic and improve user engagement on your website.)
Visit the plugin site to learn more about using this plugin:
Social LinkMachine
(Social Link Machine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social Link Machine is a set-and-forget plugin for WordPress that lets you automatically syndicate and drip-feed content to over 30 authority websites, build backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and create 2nd-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – syndicate your content automatically to dozens of authority sites)
With SocialLinkMachine installed, you can automatically drip-feed your content to dozens of social platforms, including:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Bitly, Folkd, Kippt, Stumbleupon, etc.
- Blogging Platforms: e.g. Livejournal, Rebel Mouse, Tribe, etc.
- Social Platforms: Google Plus, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- PDF Sharing: e.g. Issuu, Sendspace, etc.
To learn more about using this WordPress plugin, visit the plugin site: Social Link Machine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (so you can get actionable information about your content distribution efforts), we have written a detailed article where we explore over 30 social media tracking tools that will help you identify new business opportunities, track competitor activity, see what conversations are taking place online that affect your business,etc. Visit this page to learn more:
The above are just a few examples of the many plugins that WordPress makes available for automating and syndicating 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 System: Content Sharing Stage – Summary
Once your WordPress site and plugins have been fully set up and configured, all you need to do then is add new content on a consistent basis to automatically attract web traffic.
If you need help coming up with great ideas for posting content on your website, we recommend subscribing to our FREE email training series here:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the web-traffic generation process. This step is explained in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Part Four
To keep reading, click on the link below:
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"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
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