Welcome to Part Four of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new traffic automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS.
So far, we have covered the following in this article series:
In Part 1, we explain why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to begin attracting traffic is publish fresh content on a consistent basis!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to get started 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 existing site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In Part Three, we look at the configuration phase of the blueprint.
Here, we configure all the settings that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 you learn how to configure all the settings that affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In this section, you will learn how to set up various plugins that can help get visitors automatically to your website or blog.
Why It Makes Sense To Automate Your Traffic-Getting Process
Depending on who you get your advice from, you could end up spending an hour every day (or more) posting content on social media.
Most small business owners simply lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts advise. If you are spending all of your time posting updates on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn in addition to researching and writing articles for your blog or website, how does anything else in your business get done?
(Small business owners spend most of their time keeping their businesses up and running. Infographic: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many 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.
A study of small businesses done in 2012 by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- Almost half of all small businesses surveyed spent 6 or more hours per week on social media (most of the other 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 survey was done today, the numbers would probably be higher.
- More than half of all small 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.
(Small businesses spend more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Image source: VerticalResponse)
As small businesses spend more time promoting and marketing themselves online as a matter of business survival and competition, this puts more and more pressure on businesses to prioritize their time on other areas …
(Businesses with limited time, resources, and budget and many 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 sites, 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 often will make decisions that can dramatically affect your business without prior warning. Why invest so much effort and time building content on rented real estate? With a self-hosted WordPress website, you can control your own real estate and distribute your content automatically to other online accounts.
Investing in automation to save time is not new. Businesses have been doing it since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Digital 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 marketing budgets, time, and resources. For example:
- Which channels do you invest more efforts, time, and your budget on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc.) while neglecting the benefits of building content on 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 Web Traffic Generation With WordPress
What we’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula for automating your traffic-getting 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 costs,
- Determine which channels you should focus more time, efforts, and budget on,
- Invest most of your time building your own asset 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 recommend avoiding black hat sites, techniques, tools, and anything designed to flaunt or violate the policies and terms of service of sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc..
(Automating your web traffic does not have to involve the use of black hat techniques!)
What we are focusing in this article series is not to game web services or break their terms of service, but to show you how to be smart with your limited resources and automate your content distribution in order to leverage your time and efforts, and increase your exposure online to sites visited by your target audience.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
We’ve just seen that most small business owners lack the time, human resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online experts advise. What you want to do, then, is to be strategic and work smart within your limitations.
So, instead of using this time-consuming approach …
(Posting content to marketing channels individually can be extremely time-consuming!)
Why not use this 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 channels.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social media sites and social bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute content (and comments) 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 as explained in Part 2. Then, configure your site settings as shown in Part Three. After all this is in place, you can then automate the process with plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic System – Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at a few traffic-generating WordPress plugins that can help to:
- Syndicate content to social media sites and social bookmarking sites
- Post comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content automatically via RSS feeds to other sites
Jetpack Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, 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 loads of great features.
After installing Jetpack, you will need to connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account …
(Make sure the Jetpack plugin is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Activate the Publicize feature)
Configure this section to automatically share your posts on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and more …
(Distribute your posts to various social media networks.)
After all settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize settings displayed in the Publish section.)
Now, whenever you publish a new post, it will automatically get shared online to all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as content is published, it is automatically syndicated online.)
Go here to learn more about this plugin: Jetpack
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The native WordPress commenting feature allows your blog readers to engage with your website or blog, post new comments, reply to other users and participate in discussions as part of an online community.
You can enhance the WordPress built-in commenting feature using a 3rd-party plugin like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrates with social media, helping to spread and share them around.
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 tweet, +1, or like your content. This plugin will visit the comment author’s site while they type their comment and retrieve their last blog posts, which they can include below their comment after clicking the submit button.
(CommentLuv Pro version can attract more comments and improve user engagement on your website or blog.)
Go here to learn more about the benefits of this plugin:
SocialLinkMachine
(Social LinkMachine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social LinkMachine is a set-and-forget plugin that allows you to drip-feed content to dozens of social platforms, build anchor text backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and second-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – syndicate and drip-feed your content automatically to dozens of traffic-generating platforms)
With SocialLinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate and drip-feed your content to dozens of social websites, including:
- Social Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Bitly, Folkd, Plurk, Stumbleupon, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Livejournal, Sett, Tribe, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Facebook, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- Document Sharing: e.g. Docdroid, Gett, etc.
To learn more about this WordPress plugin, visit this website: SocialLinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (so you can get actionable information about your content distribution campaigns), we have written a detailed article where we explore several social media tracking tools and technologies that you may want to check out. Go here for more information:
The above are just some examples of the many plugins that WordPress makes available for automating and sharing 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 System: Content Distribution Phase – Summary
Once you have your site and plugins set up and expertly configured, all you have to do to begin attracting new traffic is publish content regularly.
If you need help coming up with unlimited ideas for content that you can post on your website or blog, 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 the process. This step is addressed in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Part Four
To read more, click on the link below:
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