Welcome to Part 4 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to turn a site into an automated traffic generating machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
So far, we have covered the following in this series:
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to automatically begin bringing new traffic is add new content regularly!)
In Part Two, we discuss the setup phase of the automation blueprint. We help you understand the best way to get started 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 site is built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part 3, we look at 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 3 you will configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that affect your site’s traffic-getting ability)
In this article, we discuss ways to automate the traffic-getting process with WordPress plugins.
Why It Makes Sense To Automate Your Traffic Generation
Depending on which expert you listen to, you could end up investing an hour or two (or more) per day posting content on social media.
Many businesses simply lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts are recommending. If you spend hours posting updates on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn in addition to planning and writing articles for your website or blog, how does anything else in your business get done?
(Small businesses spend most of their time keeping their businesses up and running. Infographic: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many business owners spend most of their working hours trying to keep their businesses up and running. In addition to running a business, there’s also sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to stay competitive and grow in order to survive.
A study of small businesses done by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- Almost half of all businesses surveyed spent at least 6 hours each week on social media (the other half 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 done today, the figures would most likely be even higher.
- More than half of all small businesses surveyed spent 1-3 hours or more creating a blog post.
- Finding and posting content for social media was their most time-consuming online activity.
(Businesses are spending more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Source: VerticalResponse)
As businesses spend more time promoting and marketing themselves online 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, resources, and budgets and many business areas to focus on have to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
Another important thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time social websites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. These sites can make decisions that can dramatically affect your business without requiring your input. Why invest so much effort and time building a business on rented real estate? With WordPress (self-hosted), you can control your own real estate and publish your content automatically to other sites.
Automating processes to leverage time is not new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the increased availability of so many new online marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for business owners and business managers, especially for those with limited marketing budgets, time, and resources. For example:
- Which of these channels should you focus more of your efforts, time, and your budget on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that do not belong to you (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, 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 Your Web Traffic Generation Process With WordPress
What I’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective method for automating the traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this formula, 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 online marketing costs,
- Determine which marketing channels you should focus more efforts, time, and your budget on,
- Invest most of your time building your own asset instead of someone else’s 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 urge that you stay away from all black hat techniques, solutions, sites, and anything designed to manipulate or violate the policies and terms of service of companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc..
(Automating your web traffic doesn’t have to involve using black hat techniques!)
The purpose of this article is 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 get additional exposure online from websites frequented by your target audience.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
We’ve just seen that most businesses lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online experts recommend doing. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited resources, budget, and time.
So, instead of posting content to each different service, which can be extremely time-consuming …
(Posting content to marketing channels one by one can be very time-consuming!)
Why not do this 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:
- Automatically distribute content to social media sites and social bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute comments and content 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 Two. Then, expertly configure things as explained in Part Three. After all this is in place, you then automate your content distribution with plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Traffic Generation Plugins
Let’s take a look now at some examples of traffic-generation plugins that can help:
- Distribute content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Post content via RSS to other web properties
Jetpack WordPress Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, 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 loads of great functions.
After Jetpack has been installed, you will need to 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 …
(Jetpack plugin – Publicize)
You can share your posts on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and more …
(Publicize your content automatically to several social media networks.)
After all account and plugin settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account details in your Publish section.)
Now, whenever you publish a new post, it will automatically be shared online to every account you have set up …
(As soon as new posts are published, they are automatically shared online.)
Go here to learn more about using this plugin: Jetpack by WordPress.com
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The WordPress built-in commenting system allows your visitors to interact with your website, post comments, reply to existing comments and engage with your content as part of a community.
You can expand the WordPress default commenting feature using a number of 3rd-party plugins that integrate with social media, helping to spread and share them around.
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 plus1, like, or tweet your post. This plugin will visit the comment author’s website or blog while they are entering their comment and retrieve their last blog posts, which they can include with their comment after clicking submit.
(CommentLuv Pro version can help attract more comments and web traffic and improve user engagement on your site.)
Go here to learn more about the benefits of this plugin:
SocialLinkMachine
(Social Link Machine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social LinkMachine is a set-and-forget WordPress plugin that lets you automatically drip-feed your content, build anchor text backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and create second-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – syndicate and drip-feed content to over 30 authority sites)
With Social Link Machine installed, you can automatically syndicate content to dozens of social sites, including:
- Social Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Bitly, Diigo, Kippt, Scoop.it, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogs: e.g. Blogger, Sett, Tumblr, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- PDF Sharing Platforms: e.g. Issuu, Gett, etc.
To learn more about this great plugin, visit the plugin site: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (in order to get useful information about your content marketing efforts), we have written a comprehensive article about social media monitoring tools and technologies that are worth checking out and knowing about. Go here to learn more about this:
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: Automated Content Syndication Phase – Summary
Once your WordPress site and plugins have been fully set up and configured, all you have to do is post great content on a regular basis to automatically attract web traffic.
We have created a complete email email-based training course aimed at helping you never run out of great content for posting to your web site:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the process. This step is covered in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Part 4
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
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"I love the way your email series "Infinite Web Content Creation Training Series" is documented and presented. It is very absorbing and captivating. The links and tutorials are interesting and educational. This has motivated me to rewrite my content following the concepts I am learning from the email series." - Mani Raju, www.fortuneinewaste.com
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