Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to grow your business online automatically using WordPress.
So far, here is what we have covered in this article series:
In Part One, we provide an overview of the traffic automation process, and explain 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 is publish new content regularly to automatically attract more web traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part 3, we focus on the configuration phase.
Here, we configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 we explain how to configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In Part 4, we will look at ways to automate your traffic using a number of WordPress plugins.
Why Automate The Traffic Generation Process?
Depending on who you listen to, you could end up trying to spend a couple of hours per day (or more) posting content on social media in addition to trying to manage your business, your content and your online presence.
Many business owners simply lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts prescribe. If you spend half your day posting updates on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn in addition to planning and writing content for your blog or website, how will you get anything in your business done?
(Keeping a business up and running is how most small businesses spend their time. Infographic: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Small business owners spend most of their time just keeping their businesses up and running. In addition to running a business, there’s also sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to stay competitive and grow in order to survive.
Marketing research conducted in 2012 by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- 43% of all businesses surveyed spent at least six hours each 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 research was conducted today, the figures would most likely be even 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 consumed the most time online.
(Businesses are spending more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Source: VerticalResponse)
As small businesses spend more time on online marketing in order to compete and survive, this leaves less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other important areas …
(Businesses with limited time, budget, and resources and many different areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
Another thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time marketing and promoting your business on various social sites, all of your efforts are going into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest. These companies often will make decisions that can dramatically affect your business without prior notification. Why invest so much time and effort building content on someone else’s real estate? With WordPress (self-hosted), you can have complete control of your own real estate and distribute your content automatically to other sites.
Investing in automation to leverage time and increase productivity is nothing new. Businesses have been doing it since the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the exponential growth channels for promoting and marketing a business creates a number of dilemmas for business owners, especially for those with limited resources, time, and marketing budgets. For example:
- Which marketing channels do you invest more time, efforts, and budget on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. YouTube, 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 Web Traffic Generation With WordPress
What I’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula that allows you to automate your traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this strategy, you will be able to:
- Save time creating content for your website and social media,
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary web marketing costs,
- Determine which marketing channels you should invest more of your efforts, time, and budget 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 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 urge you to avoid using black hat strategies, tools, websites, and anything designed to manipulate or violate the policies and terms of service of companies like Google, Facebook, YouTube, etc..
(Automating your web traffic doesn’t have to involve the use of black hat techniques!)
The focus of this article series 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 that your target audience frequents.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
As we’ve just seen in the previous section, many business owners lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many experts are prescribing. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited time, budget, and resources.
So, instead of choosing this approach, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to different channels is extremely time-consuming!)
Why not use this time-saving method 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 channels and social bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute comments and content to other blogs and online properties using RSS
- Import content automatically (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 website or blog as shown in Part 2. Then, get everything configured as explained in Part Three. After all this is in place, you then connect all of the dots using plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Traffic Plugins
Let’s take a brief look at some examples of traffic-generation WordPress plugins that can be used to:
- Post content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content to other web properties via RSS feeds
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, GooglePlus, 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, 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 on Jetpack)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, and more …
(Share your content automatically on several social accounts.)
After configuring all account and plugin settings, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account details in your Publish section.)
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 syndicated online.)
Jetpack provides you with 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 interact with your website or blog, post new comments, reply to existing comments and participate in discussions as part of an online community.
You can enhance the WordPress native commenting feature using third-party plugins like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrate your comments with social media, helping to share and spread your content around.
For example, with a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version), you can improve user engagement on your site. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social rewards like SEO backlinks, adding twitter usernames to comments, ability to use keywords in the name, and social enticements for sharing your content. This plugin will visit the website or blog of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their last blog posts, which can be included with their comment after clicking the submit button.
(CommentLuv Premium version can encourage a greater level of commenting and improve user engagement on your web site.)
To learn more about this plugin, visit this website:
SocialLinkMachine
(Social Link Machine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social LinkMachine is a WordPress plugin that allows you to automatically syndicate and drip-feed your content, build anchor text backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and 2nd-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social Link Machine – syndicate and drip-feed your content to dozens of online sites)
With Social Link Machine installed, you can automatically drip-feed content to dozens of online sites, such as:
- Social Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Delicious, Folkd, Kippt, Zotero, etc.
- Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blogger, Sett, Tribe, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- PDF Sharing: e.g. Issuu, Sendspace, etc.
To learn more about this handy plugin, go here: 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 marketing campaigns), go here for a detailed article on social media monitoring tools that are worth knowing about:
The above are just some 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 Blueprint: Content Syndication Phase – Summary
Once your website and plugins have been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do then to automatically begin attracting web traffic is post great content consistently.
If you need help coming up with unlimited great ideas for content that you can post 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 addressed in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Part 4
To read more, click here:
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"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya
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