Welcome to Part 4 of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to turn a site into an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
So far, we have covered the following in this article series:
In Part 1, we provided an overview of the traffic automation process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to automatically generate web traffic is post fresh content consistently!)
In Part 2, we discuss the setup phase of the automation system. We explain the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing website is built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In Part Three, we look at the configuration phase.
Here, we configure all the settings that can affect your website’s traffic-getting ability …
(In Part Three you will configure all the settings that can affect your site’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part 4, we discuss ways to automate your traffic using a number of WordPress plugins.
Why Automate The Traffic Generation Process?
Depending on which online marketing experts you listen to, you could find yourself spending an hour or more a day promoting your business on social media while also managing your business, your content and your web presence.
Many businesses simply lack the time, human resources and budget to run a full-time marketing department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts are advising. If you spend all of your time posting updates on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter in addition to writing articles for your website or blog, how will you get anything in your business done?
(Keeping a business up and running is how most small business owners spend their working hours. Source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Small 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 grow in order to survive.
A study of small businesses conducted by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- Almost half of all businesses surveyed spent at least six hours per week on social media (the other half of businesses surveyed that used social media spent even more time – between 6 and 21+ hours per week). This use of social media was a 66% increase from the previous year, so if the same research was done today, the numbers would most likely 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 consumed the most time online.
(Small businesses are spending more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Image source: VerticalResponse.com)
As small businesses spend more time promoting and marketing themselves online in order to compete and survive, this puts more and more of a squeeze on businesses to focus their time on other important areas …
(Businesses with limited resources, time, and budgets and many business areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
Another important thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time social websites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you have no control over. You don’t own Facebook, Twitter, or StumbleUpon. These companies can and will make decisions that can dramatically impact your business without requiring your input. Why invest so much effort and time building content on rented real estate? With WordPress (self-hosted), you can have complete control of your own real estate and distribute your content automatically to other sites.
Automating business systems and processes to save time and increase productivity is not new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it since the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the exponential growth online marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners, especially for those with limited time, resources, and budgets. For example:
- Which of these marketing channels do 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, Tumblr, etc.) while neglecting the benefits of building content on your own domain?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to promote and market your business on?
The Benefits Of Automating The Traffic-Getting Process With WordPress
What I’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective method for automating your traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this method, you will be able to:
- Save time creating content for your website or blog and social media,
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary online marketing channels,
- Determine which channels you should invest more of your efforts, budget, and your time 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 strongly recommend avoiding black hat software, strategies, websites, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of services like YouTube, Google, Facebook, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not have to involve using black hat techniques!)
The focus of this article is to show you how to automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and marketing efforts, and increase your exposure online to websites 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 small business owners lack the time, human resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts prescribe. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited resources, budget, and time.
So, instead of choosing this approach, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to individual marketing channels can be very time-consuming!)
Why not use this approach 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 marketing channels.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social media services 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 do all of this?
Simple … first, set up your WordPress site as described in Part 2. Then, expertly configure everything as explained in Part Three. After all this is in place, you can 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 System – Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at some examples of traffic-generation WordPress plugins that can be used to:
- Syndicate content automatically to social sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content to other online properties via RSS feeds
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, LinkedIn, GooglePlus 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 features.
After Jetpack has been installed, connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account (set up in Part Three.) …
(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 Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, and more …
(Publicize your content to various social media networks.)
After configuring all of the plugin and account settings, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account details in the Publish box.)
Now, whenever you publish new content, it will automatically get shared online to all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as new posts are published, they are automatically syndicated online.)
For more details about this great plugin, visit the plugin site: Jetpack Plugin
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
WordPress has a native commenting function that allows your site users to interact with your website, post new comments, reply to other users and engage with your content as part of a social community.
You can expand the WordPress built-in commenting feature using a 3rd-party plugin that integrates your comments with social media, helping to share and spread your content online.
For example, with a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version), you can make your blog more attractive to commenters by offering them a choice of backlinks if they +1, tweet, or like your post. This plugin will visit the comment author’s website or blog while they type their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which they can include below their comment after clicking the submit button.
(CommentLuv Premium version can encourage a greater level of commenting and improve user engagement on your website or blog.)
Visit this website to learn more about the benefits of using this plugin:
Social Link Machine
(Social Link Machine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social Link Machine is a plugin that lets you automatically syndicate your content, build backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and create second-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social Link Machine – drip-feed your content to over 30 social websites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate and drip-feed your content to over 30 online platforms, including:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Deviantart, Linkagogo, Kippt, Stumbleupon, etc.
- Blogs: e.g. Blog.com, Sett, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- PDF Sharing: e.g. Issuu, Sendspace, etc.
To learn more about this great plugin, go here: Social Link Machine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (so you can get actionable information about your content marketing efforts), go here for a detailed article on social media monitoring tools that you may want to check out:
The above are just a few examples of the many plugins that WordPress makes available for automating 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 Syndication Process – Summary
Once you have your site and plugins expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do is add new content regularly to attract more traffic organically.
If you need help coming up with great topics for content that you can post on your site, we recommend subscribing to our FREE email training series on content marketing here:
Once you have expertly 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 the rest of this article, click here:
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Welcome to Part 5 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive traffic automatically to your site using WordPress.
