Welcome to Part Four of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to create an automated traffic machine using WordPress.
So far, here is what we have covered in this article series:
In Part 1, we 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 or blog, all you have to do to automatically bring more web traffic is post content regularly!)
In Part 2, we focus on critical setup decisions. We help 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 has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In Part Three, we discuss configuring the system.
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 explain how to configure all the settings that can affect your website’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part Four, we will discuss ways to automate the traffic-generation process using a number of plugins.
Why Automating Your Traffic-Getting Process Makes Sense
Depending on which experts you get your advice from, you could find yourself investing 1-2 hours or more per day posting content on social media while also trying to run your business, creating content and managing your online presence.
Many small businesses simply lack the time, resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts are prescribing. If you spent half a day checking LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook in addition to planning and writing articles for your blog or website, how would anything in your business ever get done?
(Keeping their business running is how most small business owners spend their time. Image source: NFIB)
Many business owners spend most of their working hours trying to keep their businesses up and running. On top of this, there’s also sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to stay competitive and make sales in order to survive.
Marketing research conducted by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- 43% of all small businesses surveyed spent at least 6 hours each week on social media (the rest spent even more time – between 6 and 21+ hours per week). This usage of social media was a 66% increase from the previous year, so if the same survey was conducted today, the figures would most likely be 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 was their most time-consuming online activity.
(Small businesses are spending more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Source: VerticalResponse)
As small businesses spend more time on online marketing as a matter of business survival and competition, this puts more and more pressure on businesses to prioritize their time on other vital areas …
(Businesses with limited resources, budget, and time and many different areas to focus on need to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
One other important thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time social media sites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you have no control over. You don’t own Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. These sites can 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, you can have complete control of your own virtual real estate and distribute your content automatically to other websites.
Automating systems and process to save time and increase productivity is nothing new. Businesses have been doing it since the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the increasing availability of hundreds of new channels for promoting and marketing a business online creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners and marketing managers, especially for those with limited time, marketing budget, and resources. For example:
- Which channels do you invest more budget, time, and your efforts on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that belong to other businesses (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 method that allows you to automate the traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this formula, you will be able to:
- Save time creating web content and social media,
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary online marketing costs,
- Determine which marketing channels you should invest more of your time, efforts, and your budget on,
- Invest most of your efforts 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 staying away from all black hat sites, solutions, strategies, and anything designed to flaunt or violate the policies and terms of service of sites like Pinterest, Facebook, Google.
(Web traffic automation does not have to involve using black hat techniques!)
The focus of this series of articles is not to game web services or bypass 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
As we’ve just seen in the previous section, most small business owners lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online experts advise. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited resources, budget, and time.
So, instead of posting content to each channel, which can be extremely time-consuming …
(Posting content to different channels is extremely time-consuming!)
Why not choose this one 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 your content distribution to all other marketing channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social media services and bookmarking sites,
- Distribute comments and content automatically 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 do all of this?
Simple … first, set up your WordPress website or blog as described in Part 2. Then, expertly configure it as explained in Part 3. After all this is in place, you can then automate your content distribution using plugins like the ones listed in the section below.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic System – Traffic Generation Plugins
Let’s take a look now at some WordPress plugins that can help:
- Post content to social media sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content via RSS to other web properties
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Google+ 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 functions.
After Jetpack has been installed, 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 on Jetpack)
You can share your posts on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, GooglePlus, and more …
(Share your posts automatically on various social media sites.)
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 options appear in your Publish box.)
Now, as soon as you publish a new post, it will automatically be shared online to every account you have set up …
(As soon as content is published, it is automatically distributed online.)
Jetpack provides you with a hands-free, automated way to get more exposure for your content online on social media websites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
WordPress has a native commenting feature that lets your site users engage with your web site, post comments, reply to existing comments and engage with your content as part of a community.
You can enhance the WordPress default commenting feature using 3rd-party plugins that integrate your comments with social media, helping to spread and share your content around.
For example, with a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version), you can improve user engagement on your web site. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social reward features like the ability to add twitter usernames to comments, social enticements for content sharing, ability to use keywords in the name, and SEO backlinks. This plugin will visit the comment author’s website while they enter their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which they can choose to include below their comment after clicking submit.
(CommentLuv Premium version can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your website or blog.)
Visit this site to learn more about the benefits of this plugin:
Social Link Machine
(Social Link Machine – Content distribution plugin for WordPress)
Social LinkMachine is a plugin for WordPress that allows you to automatically syndicate your content to dozens of social sites, build diverse anchor text backlinks, include relevant YouTube videos and images, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social Link Machine – drip-feed your content automatically to many authority platforms)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate and drip-feed content to over 30 social platforms, like:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Deviantart, Diigo, Plurk, Zotero, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blog.com, Rebel Mouse, Tumblr, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- PDF Sharing: e.g. Docdroid, Sendspace, etc.
Go here 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 actionable information about your content distribution efforts), we have written a comprehensive article where we explore several social media measurement tools and technologies that are worth knowing about. To learn more, visit this page:
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 Blueprint: Content Syndication Phase – Summary
Once your website and plugins have been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do to begin attracting web traffic is add web content on a consistent basis.
We have created a complete email series designed to help you come up with limitless content for your site:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the web-traffic generation process. This step is explained in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Section 4
To keep reading, click on the link below:
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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