Welcome to Part Four of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to turn a site into an automated web traffic generating machine using WordPress.
So far, here is what we have covered in this series:
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to bring more traffic is add content consistently!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase of the blueprint. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part 3, we discuss the configuration phase.
In this step, we configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that can affect your site’s traffic-getting ability …
(In Part Three you will configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that affect your site’s traffic-getting ability)
In this article, we will show you how to set up various WordPress plugins that can help bring traffic automatically to your website or blog.
Why Automating The Traffic-Getting Process Makes Sense
Depending on who you listen to, you could end up investing a couple of hours or more each day promoting your business on social media.
Most businesses simply lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts recommend doing. If you are spending half your day posting updates on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook in addition to researching and writing content for your blog or website, how can anything in your business get done?
(Keeping a business up and running is how most small business owners spend their time. Infographic source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many business owners spend most of their time just keeping their businesses up and running. On top of this, there’s sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to stay competitive and make sales in order to survive.
Research done in 2012 by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- 43% of all small businesses surveyed spent around 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 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 was their most time-consuming online activity.
(Small businesses are spending more time marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic source: VerticalResponse.com)
As businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time on online marketing in order to compete and survive, this puts more and more of a squeeze on businesses to focus their time on other equally vital areas …
(Businesses with limited budgets, resources, and time and many different business areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
One other important thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time social media 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 sites can make decisions that affect your business without first consulting you. Why invest so much effort and time building a business on someone else’s real estate? With WordPress (self-hosted), you can control your own real estate and publish your content automatically to other online accounts.
Automating processes to save time is not new. Businesses have been doing it since the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the availability of many new channels for promoting and marketing a business 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 time, efforts, and your budget 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 ignoring your own domain?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to include in your marketing strategy?
The Benefits Of Automating Your Web Traffic Generation Process With WordPress
What we’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective method for automating your traffic generation process with WordPress.
With this strategy, you will be able to:
- Save time creating web content and other marketing channels (e.g. social media),
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary web marketing costs,
- Determine which channels you should focus more of your efforts, budget, and time on,
- Invest most of your time and efforts building your own asset 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 strongly recommend staying away from all black hat sites, strategies, software, and anything designed to “game” or violate the policies and terms of service of services like Facebook, Google, YouTube, etc..
(Automating your web traffic does not need to involve the use of black hat techniques!)
The purpose of this series of articles 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 small businesses lack the time, resources and budget 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 time, budget, and resources.
So, instead of posting content to different marketing channels, which is extremely time-consuming …
(Posting content to individual channels is very time-consuming!)
Why not opt for this 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 once, and automate your content distribution to all other marketing channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social media channels and bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute content (and comments) to other blogs and online 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 get all this done?
Simple … first, set up your site as explained in Part 2. Then, expertly configure your site settings as explained in Part 3. Once all of this is in place, you then automate various processes using plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Traffic Generation Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at a number of plugins that can help:
- Distribute content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking websites
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Post content automatically via RSS feeds to other blogs
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, GooglePlus, LinkedIn and more as soon as you publish new content using a WordPress plugin like JetPack.
Download URL: https://jetpack.com/
Jetpack is a free WordPress plugin with many great functions.
After Jetpack has been installed, you will need to connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account you set up in Part 3 …
(Make sure the Jetpack plugin is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate a feature called Publicize …
(Activate the Publicize feature on Jetpack)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, LinkedIn, GooglePlus, and more …
(Share your content automatically on several social sites.)
After configuring all of the account and plugin settings, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize settings appear in the publishing section.)
Now, whenever you publish a new post, it will automatically get shared online to every account you have set up …
(As soon as content is published, it is automatically distributed online.)
Go here to learn more about this plugin: Jetpack
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The native WordPress commenting feature lets your visitors interact with your web site, post new 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 online.
For example, a plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version) can help make your blog more attractive to commenters by offering them a wider choice of backlinks if they tweet, plus1, or like your post. This plugin will visit the site of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their last blog posts, which can be included with their comment when they click the submit button.
(CommentLuv Pro version can help attract more comments and create more user engagement on your site.)
For more details about the benefits of this plugin, go here:
SocialLinkMachine
(Social LinkMachine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social LinkMachine is a set-and-forget plugin that lets you syndicate and drip-feed content, build backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – syndicate and drip-feed your content to over 30 online sites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate your content to many authority platforms, like:
- Social Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Deviantart, Folkd, Instapaper, Reddit, etc.
- Blogs: e.g. Blog.com, Rebel Mouse, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Google Plus, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- Document Sharing: e.g. Docdroid, Sendspace, etc.
To learn more about the benefits of using this plugin, go here: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (so you can get actionable information about your content marketing efforts), we have written a detailed article about social media measurement tools that are worth knowing about. Go here to learn more:
The above are just some examples of the many plugins that WordPress makes available for automating and sharing 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 Distribution Stage – Summary
Once your website or blog and plugins have been set up and expertly configured, all you have to do then to begin attracting more traffic is post new content on a regular basis.
We have created a complete email training series aimed at helping you never run out of content for your website or blog:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the web-traffic generation process. This step is covered in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section 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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Welcome to Part Five of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to drive new traffic automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS.
