Welcome to Part Four of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to turn a website into an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
So far, here is what we have covered in this article series:
In Part One of this series, we explain why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to begin bringing new traffic is add new content on a consistent basis!)
In Part 2, we discuss the setup phase. We help 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 website, and what to do if your existing website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In Part Three, we discuss the configuration phase.
Here, we configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part Three you will configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In this section of the series, we will show you how to set up various WordPress plugins that can get new visitors automatically to your website when you begin to post web content on a consistent basis.
Why Automate The Traffic Generation Process?
Depending on which business marketing gurus you talk to, you could end up trying to spend an hour or two (or more) per day posting content on social media.
Many businesses lack the time, resources and budget to run a full-time marketing department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts are recommending. If you spent half a day checking Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter in addition to planning and writing content for your blog or website, how would anything in your business ever get done?
(Keeping their business up and running is how most small businesses spend their working hours. Source: NFIB)
Small business owners spend most of their time simply keeping their businesses up and running. In addition to running a business, there’s sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to stay competitive and grow in order to survive.
A study of small businesses done in 2012 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 rest 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 probably be significantly higher.
- More than half of all businesses surveyed spent 1-3 hours or more to create a blog post.
- Finding and posting content for social media was the activity that consumed the most time online for all businesses surveyed.
(Small businesses are spending more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic source: VerticalResponse.com)
As businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time on online marketing as a matter of business survival and competition, this puts more and more pressure on businesses to focus their time on other equally vital areas …
(Businesses with limited resources, budget, and time and many different business areas to focus on need to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
Another thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time promoting and marketing your business on various social 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 Pinterest. These sites often will make decisions that can dramatically affect your business without first consulting you. Why invest so much time and effort building a business on someone else’s asset? With a self-hosted WordPress site, you can control your own virtual real estate and post your content automatically to other sites.
Automating systems and process to save time and increase productivity is not new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the increasing availability of many new channels for marketing and promoting a business online creates a number of dilemmas for business owners, especially for those with limited resources, time, and budgets. For example:
- Which of these channels should you focus more of your time, efforts, and your budget on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that you do not control (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc.) while ignoring your own website?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to promote and market your business on?
The Benefits Of Automating The Traffic Generation Process With WordPress
What I’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula that lets you automate your traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this strategy, 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 online marketing channels,
- Determine which channels you should focus more efforts, time, and budget on,
- Invest most of your 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 techniques, software, sites, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of companies like Pinterest, Facebook, Google.
(Web traffic automation doesn’t have to involve the use of black hat methods!)
What we are focusing here is not to manipulate online services or bypass their terms of service, but to show you how to be smart with your resources and automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and marketing efforts, and get additional exposure online from sites used by your target audience.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
As we’ve just seen in the previous section, most businesses lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many experts recommend doing. What you want to do, then, is to be strategic and work smart within your limitations.
So, instead of posting content to each marketing channel, which can be extremely time-consuming …
(Posting content to marketing channels one by one can be extremely time-consuming!)
Why not opt for this time-saving 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 content once, and automate your content distribution to all other marketing channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social media services and bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute content (and comments) 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 get all this done?
Simple … first, set up your WordPress website as described in Part 2. Then, get everything configured as described in Part Three. Once all of this is in place, you then automate these processes 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 quick look at a number of plugins that can be used to:
- Distribute content to social media sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Post comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content via RSS to other web properties
Jetpack Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn 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 useful functions.
After installing Jetpack, you will need to connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account you set up in Part Three …
(Make sure the Jetpack plugin is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Jetpack plugin – Publicize)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, and more …
(Publicize your posts automatically to various social 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 options displays in your post publishing section.)
Now, as soon as you publish new content, it will automatically be shared on every account you have set up …
(As soon as new posts are published, they are automatically shared online.)
The Jetpack plugin provides you with a hands-free way to create more exposure online for your content on social networks.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
WordPress has a built-in commenting function that allows your visitors to interact with your website or blog, post comments, reply to other users and participate in discussions.
You can enhance the WordPress default commenting feature with 3rd-party plugins like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrate with social media, helping to share and spread your content around.
For example, a plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version) can help make your site more attractive to commenters by offering them a choice of backlinks if they +1, like, or tweet your content. This plugin will visit the comment author’s website while they are typing their comment and retrieve their last blog posts, which can be included at the bottom of their comment when they click the submit button.
(CommentLuv Pro version can attract more comments and create more user engagement on your web site.)
To learn more about using this plugin, go here:
Social LinkMachine
(Social Link Machine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social Link Machine is a set-and-forget plugin that lets you syndicate your content, build backlinks, include relevant videos and images, and 2nd-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social Link Machine – syndicate and drip-feed content automatically to many traffic-generating sites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate your content to many traffic-generating platforms, including:
- Social Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Bitly, Diigo, Kippt, Scoop.it, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogs: e.g. Blog.com, Rebel Mouse, Tumblr, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- Document Sharing Platforms: e.g. Issuu, Sendspace, etc.
Visit the plugin website to learn more about this plugin: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (in order to get useful information about your content marketing efforts), we have created a comprehensive article where we explore several social media monitoring tools that are worth knowing about. See this page to learn more:
The above are just a few 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 Sharing Phase – Summary
Once your website and plugins have been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to automatically attract new traffic is post new content consistently.
We have created an entire email series aimed at helping you never run out of great content for posting to your web site:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize as much of the process as you can. This step is addressed in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Part 4
To continue reading, click on the link below:
- WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint Part 5 – How To Create An Automated Web Traffic-Getting Machine
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