Welcome to Part 4 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to turn a website into an automated web traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS.
So far, here is what we have covered in this series:
In Part One, we described the traffic automation process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to automatically bring web traffic is post new content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we looked at critical setup decisions. We helped you understand 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 site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part Three, we focus on configuring WordPress.
In this step, we configure all the settings that affect your site’s traffic-getting ability …
(In Part Three you will configure all the settings that affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In this section, we explain how to set up various plugins that can help bring web traffic automatically to your website or blog simply by posting new content consistently.
Why It Makes Sense To Automate Your Traffic Generation
Depending on which marketing experts you talk to, you could end up trying to spend an hour or more each day posting content on social media in addition to trying to run your business, creating content and managing your online presence.
Many small businesses simply lack the time, human resources and budget to run a full-time marketing and content creation department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts recommend doing. If you were to spend half a day checking Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter in addition to writing content for your website or blog, how would anything in your business get done?
(Keeping a business up and running is how most small business owners spend their working hours. Image source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many businesses spend most of their working hours keeping their businesses up and running. On top of this, 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 in 2012 by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- Almost half of all small businesses surveyed spent around 6 hours each 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 numbers 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 consumed the most time online.
(Small businesses are spending more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic: 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 focus their time on other equally vital areas …
(Businesses with limited time, marketing budget, and resources and many different business areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
Another thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time social media sites, all of your efforts are going into virtual real estate that you have no control over. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest. These companies can and will make decisions that can dramatically impact your business without first consulting you. Why invest so much time and effort building content on rented real estate? With a self-hosted WordPress site, you can control your own real estate and publish your content automatically to other online properties.
Automating systems and process to save time is nothing new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it ever since the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the availability of many new marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for business owners, especially for those with limited marketing budgets, time, and resources. For example:
- Which channels do you invest more efforts, time, and budget on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that belong to other companies (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.) while neglecting the benefits of building content on your own domain?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to market and promote your business on?
The Benefits Of Automating Your Traffic-Getting Process With WordPress
What we’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective strategy for automating the traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this method, 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 invest more of your time, efforts, and your 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 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 urge you to avoid using black hat methods, sites, solutions, and anything that violates the terms of service and policies of services like Google, Facebook, Pinterest, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not require the use of black hat techniques!)
The purpose of this article is to show you how to automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and efforts, and get additional exposure online from sites that your target audience frequents.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
We’ve just seen in the previous section how most business owners lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online experts are prescribing. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited budget, resources, and time.
So, instead of choosing this approach, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to different marketing channels can be very time-consuming!)
Why not choose a smarter, time-saving strategy 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 once, and automate the distribution of your content to all other services.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social media channels and social bookmarking sites,
- Distribute content (and comments) automatically 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 of this done?
Simple … first, set up your site as explained in Part Two. Then, expertly configure your site settings as explained in Part Three. Once all of this is in place, you can then automate your content distribution with plugins like the ones shown in the section below.
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:
- Post content automatically to social sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Post content automatically via RSS feeds to other web properties
Jetpack Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ 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, connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account (as described in Part 3.) …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Activate the Publicize feature)
Configure this section to share your posts on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, and more …
(Share your posts on various social accounts.)
After all settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize settings in the Publish box.)
Now, whenever you publish a new post, it will automatically be shared on all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as new posts are published, they are automatically distributed online.)
To learn more about the benefits of using this handy plugin, go here: Jetpack by WordPress.com
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The built-in WordPress commenting function lets your site users engage with your website, post new comments, reply to existing comments and participate in discussions as part of a community.
You can expand the WordPress native commenting feature with a 3rd-party plugin like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrates with social media, helping to spread and share them around.
For example, with a plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version), you can make your site more attractive to commenters by offering them a wider choice of backlinks if they plus1, like, or tweet your post. This plugin will visit the comment author’s site while they are entering their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which they can choose to include with their comment after clicking submit.
(CommentLuv can attract more comments and create more user engagement on your site.)
To learn more about this WordPress plugin, go here:
Social Link Machine
(Social Link Machine – Set-and-forget content distribution plugin)
Social LinkMachine is a set-and-forget plugin for WordPress that lets you syndicate your content to over 30 authority platforms, build backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and create second-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – syndicate and drip-feed content to over 30 social platforms)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically drip-feed your content to over 30 social sites, such as:
- Social Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Delicious, Diigo, Kippt, Zotero, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogs: e.g. Blog.com, Rebel Mouse, Tribe, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- PDF Sharing: e.g. Issuu, Scribd, etc.
Visit this website to learn more about this plugin: 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 distribution efforts), we have created a detailed article where we explore several social media monitoring tools that are worth checking out and knowing about. To learn more, go here:
The above are just a few examples of the many content distribution plugins that WordPress makes available.
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 System: Automated Content Sharing Stage – Summary
Once your WordPress site and plugins have been set up and expertly configured, all you need to do to automatically begin bringing more web traffic is publish fresh content on a regular basis.
If you need help coming up with endless ideas for posting content on your website, then subscribe to our FREE email training series on growing your business with content marketing here:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the process. This step is addressed in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Part 4
To read more, click here:
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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