Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic machine using WordPress.
So far, we have covered the following in this series:
In Part 1, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to start attracting web traffic is post content on a regular basis!)
In Part 2, we look at the setup phase. 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 website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In Part 3, we discuss the configuration phase.
Here, we configure all the settings (hosting, WordPress and external) that can affect your website’s traffic-getting ability …
(In Part 3 we explain how to configure all the settings (hosting, internal and external) that can affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In Part 4, we will show you how to set up various plugins that can get visitors automatically to your site whenever you begin publishing web content.
Why Automate Your Traffic-Getting Process?
Depending on which marketing expert you talk to, you could find yourself trying to spend an hour every day (or more) promoting your business on social media.
Many small businesses simply lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts recommend doing. If you are spending half your day posting updates on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn in addition to planning and writing content for your blog or website, how does anything else in your business get done?
(Keeping a business running is how most small business owners spend their time. Image source: NFIB)
Small business owners spend most of their time keeping 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 done by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- 43% of all businesses surveyed spent around six hours each week on social media (most of the other businesses surveyed that used social media 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 research was conducted today, the numbers would probably be even 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.
(Businesses spend more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Source: VerticalResponse)
As small businesses spend more time marketing and promoting themselves online as a matter of business survival and competition, this leaves even less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other areas …
(Businesses with limited time, budget, and resources and many different areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
One other important thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time marketing and promoting your business on various social sites, all of your efforts are going into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. These sites can make decisions that can dramatically impact your business without requiring your input. Why invest so much effort and time building a business on someone else’s asset? With WordPress (self-hosted), you can control your own virtual real estate and publish your content automatically to other websites.
Automating systems and process to save time and increase productivity is not new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it since the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the exponential growth online marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners and marketing managers, especially for those with limited resources, time, and budget. For example:
- Which of these 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, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.) while ignoring your own website?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to include in your marketing strategy?
The Benefits Of Automating The Traffic-Getting Process With WordPress
What we’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula that lets you automate the traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this formula, you will be able to:
- Save time creating content for your website and social media,
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary web marketing channels,
- Determine which marketing channels you should focus more of your budget, efforts, and time on,
- Invest most of your 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 avoiding black hat websites, methods, tools, and anything designed to flaunt or violate the terms of service and policies of companies like Google, Facebook, YouTube, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not have to involve the use of black hat methods!)
The focus of this article series is to show you how to automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and efforts, and increase your exposure online to 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, many businesses lack the time, human resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many experts recommend doing. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited resources, time, and budget.
So, instead of doing this …
(Posting content to marketing channels one at a time is very time-consuming!)
Why not choose this time-saving 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 content one-time, and automate your content distribution to all other services.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social 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 do all of this?
Simple … first, set up your WordPress site as shown in Part Two. Then, get it all configured as shown in Part 3. Once all of this is in place, you can then automate the process using plugins like the ones listed in the following section.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Traffic Plugins
Let’s take a look now at some examples of traffic-generation WordPress plugins that can help:
- Syndicate content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Syndicate content via RSS to other sites
Jetpack Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, 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, connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account …
(Make sure that Jetpack is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate a feature called Publicize …
(Activate the Publicize feature on Jetpack)
You can share your posts on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, and more …
(Share your posts on several social media sites.)
After all of the account and plugin settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize details displays in the publishing area.)
Now, whenever you publish new content, it will automatically be shared on all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as new content is published, it is automatically distributed online.)
Jetpack provides an automated and hands-free way to get more exposure online for your content on social media sites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The WordPress native commenting feature lets your visitors interact with your website or blog, post comments, reply to existing comments and engage with your content as part of an online community.
You can expand the WordPress default commenting feature using 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 WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version) can help make your blog more attractive to commenters by offering them a wider choice of backlinks if they plus1, tweet, or like your post. This plugin will visit the website or blog of the comment author while they are entering their comment and retrieve their most recent blog posts, which they can include with their comment when they click the submit button.
(CommentLuv Pro version can help attract more comments and improve user engagement on your web site.)
To learn more about this great plugin, visit the plugin website:
Social LinkMachine
(Social LinkMachine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social Link Machine is a plugin for WordPress that lets you drip-feed content to dozens of traffic-generating websites, build diverse anchor text backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – drip-feed content to over 30 traffic-generating websites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically drip-feed content to many social websites, like:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Bitly, Folkd, Kippt, Reddit, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blog.com, Rebel Mouse, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Google Plus, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- PDF Sharing: e.g. Issuu, Sendspace, etc.
Go here to learn more about using this powerful plugin: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (in order to get actionable information about your content marketing campaigns), we have created a comprehensive article listing several social media tracking tools and technologies that you may want to check out. More info:
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 Automation System: Automated Content Distribution Stage – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site and plugins expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do to start generating more web traffic is add new content regularly.
We have created an entire email course designed to help you never run out of content for your site:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize as much of the process as you can. This step is explained in the next article in 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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