Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to create an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
So far, here is what we have covered in this series:
In Part 1 of this series, we described the traffic automation process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to automatically attract more traffic is post great content regularly!)
In Part Two, we focus on the setup phase of the blueprint. We explain 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 existing website is built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In Part Three, we focus on important configuration decisions.
In this step, we configure all the settings (hosting, WordPress and external) that affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 we show you how to configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that can affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In Part Four, we will discuss ways to automate the traffic-getting process using various WordPress plugins.
Why You Should Consider Automating The Traffic Generation Process
Depending on who you get your advice from, you could find yourself trying to spend 1-2 hours per day (or more) posting content on social media.
Many business owners lack the time, resources and budget to employ the services of a full-time marketing department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts advise. If you are spending half your day checking LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook in addition to planning and writing content for your blog or website, how does anything else in your business get done?
(Keeping their business running is how most small business owners spend their working hours. Infographic: NFIB)
Small businesses spend most of their time trying to keep 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 grow in order to survive.
Marketing research conducted in 2012 by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- 43% of all small businesses surveyed spent at least 6 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 conducted today, the figures would most likely be significantly higher.
- More than half of all small businesses surveyed spent 1-3 hours or more to create a blog post.
- Finding and posting content for social media consumed the most time online.
(Businesses spend more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Image source: VerticalResponse.com)
As small businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time promoting and marketing themselves online as a matter of business survival and competition, this puts more and more pressure on businesses to focus their time on other areas …
(Businesses with limited resources, time, and budgets and many different areas to focus on need to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
Another important thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time promoting and marketing your business on a number of social media sites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you have no control over. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. These sites can make decisions that affect your business without prior notification. Why invest so much effort and time building a business on someone else’s asset? With a self-hosted WordPress site, you can control your own real estate and publish your content automatically to other online properties.
Investing in automation to save time is nothing new. Businesses have been doing it ever since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the availability of hundreds of new online marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for business owners and business managers, especially for those with limited resources, marketing budgets, and time. For example:
- Which of these channels should you invest more time, efforts, and budget on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that you ultimately have little to no control over (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) while neglecting the benefits of building content on your own domain?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to include in your marketing strategy?
The Benefits Of Automating The Web Traffic Generation With WordPress
What we’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective method for automating your traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this formula, you will be able to:
- Save time creating content for your website or blog and other marketing channels (e.g. social media),
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary web marketing costs,
- Determine which marketing channels you should invest more budget, efforts, and time 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 that you stay away from all black hat websites, software, methods, and anything that violates the terms of service and policies of sites like LinkedIn, Google, Facebook, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not require the use of black hat methods!)
What we are focusing in this article is to show you how to be smart with your limited resources and automate your content distribution in order to leverage your time and marketing efforts, and increase your exposure online to websites that your target audience frequents.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
We’ve just seen that many business owners lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts advise doing. What you want to do, then, is to be strategic and work smart within your limited resources.
So, instead of choosing this approach, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to individual channels can be very time-consuming!)
Why not choose a smarter, time-saving approach like the one shown below 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 marketing channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social sites and bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute content (and comments) to other blogs and web 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 get all this done?
Simple … first, set up your site as described in Part Two. Then, get it configured as explained in Part 3. Once all of this is in place, you then automate the process using plugins such as 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 Automation System – Traffic Generation Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at some traffic-generating plugins that can be used to:
- Post content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content via RSS feeds to other web properties
Jetpack by WordPress.com
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 many great features.
After installing Jetpack, connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account set up in Part 3 …
(Make sure the Jetpack plugin is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Activate the Publicize feature)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and more …
(Publicize your content automatically to various social media sites.)
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 details show in your publishing box.)
Now, as soon as 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.)
To learn more about this WordPress plugin, visit the plugin site: Jetpack Plugin
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
WordPress has a native commenting system that lets your blog readers interact with your site, post comments, reply to other users and participate in discussions.
You can expand the WordPress default commenting feature using third-party commenting 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 (Premium version), you can make your blog more attractive to commenters by offering them a wider choice of backlinks if they like, +1, or tweet your post. This plugin will visit the site of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which they can choose to include with their comment when they click the submit button.
(CommentLuv can encourage a greater level of commenting and improve user engagement on your web site.)
To learn more about this plugin, visit the plugin site:
Social LinkMachine
(SocialLinkMachine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social LinkMachine is a WordPress plugin that lets you syndicate content to dozens of social sites, build diverse anchor text backlinks, include relevant videos and images, and second-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – syndicate content to dozens of social platforms)
With Social Link Machine installed, you can automatically syndicate your content to over 30 social platforms, like:
- Social Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Delicious, Folkd, Kippt, Stumbleupon, etc.
- Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blog.com, Sett, Tribe, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- Document Sharing: e.g. Docdroid, Gett, etc.
To learn more about this plugin, visit the plugin website: SocialLinkMachine
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), we have written a comprehensive article where we explore a number of social media monitoring tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing campaigns. Go here for more info:
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 Automation Blueprint: Content Syndication Phase – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site and plugins configured and set up, all you have to do then to automatically begin bringing more web traffic is add new content consistently.
If you need great content ideas for your website or blog, then subscribe to our FREE email training course on content marketing here:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize as much of the process as can be improved. This step is explained in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Section Four
To read more, click on the link below:
***
"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
***