Welcome to Part 4 of our 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 One, we provide an overview of the traffic automation process, and explain why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is publish content on a consistent basis to start driving traffic!)
In Part Two, we focus on the setup phase. We help you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a website 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 two we show you how to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In Part 3, we look at the configuration phase.
Here, we configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that can affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 we show you how to configure all the settings (hosting, WordPress and external) that can affect your site’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part Four, we will show you how to set up various WordPress plugins that can help bring traffic automatically to your website or blog simply by adding content.
Why It Makes Sense To Automate The Traffic Generation Process
Depending on which business marketing guru you talk to, you could find yourself spending an hour each day (or more) promoting your business on social media in addition to trying to run your business, creating content and managing your online presence.
Many small businesses lack the time, human resources and financial means to run a full-time marketing department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts are recommending. If you were to spend most of your time checking LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter in addition to planning and writing content for your website or blog, how would anything else in your business get done?
(Small businesses spend most of their time keeping their businesses up and running. Infographic source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many businesses spend most of their working hours simply keeping their businesses up and running. In addition to running a business, there’s sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to stay competitive and grow in order to survive.
A study of small businesses conducted by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- Almost half of all small businesses surveyed spent around six 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 research was conducted today, the figures would most likely be higher.
- More than half of all businesses surveyed spent 1-3 hours or more creating a blog post.
- Finding and posting content for social media consumed the most time online.
(Businesses are spending more time marketing and promoting themselves online. Image source: VerticalResponse.com)
As small businesses spend more time on online marketing as a matter of business survival and competition, this leaves even less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other equally vital areas …
(Businesses with limited marketing budgets, time, and resources and many business 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 promoting and marketing your business on a number of social media sites, all of your efforts are going into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest. These companies can make decisions that can dramatically impact your business without consulting you. Why invest so much effort and time building content on someone else’s real estate? With a self-hosted WordPress website, you can control your own real estate and publish your content automatically to other websites.
Automating systems and process to save time is not new. Businesses have been doing it since the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the exponential growth channels for marketing and promoting a business creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners and marketing managers, especially for those with limited budget, time, and resources. For example:
- Which marketing channels should you focus more budget, time, and efforts on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, 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 Generation Process With WordPress
What we’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula for automating your traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this method, you will be able to:
- Save time creating web content and social media,
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary web marketing channels,
- Determine which channels you should invest more of your 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 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 sites, techniques, tools, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of sites like Facebook, Google, YouTube, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not need to involve the use of black hat techniques!)
The focus of this series of articles is not to manipulate 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 websites that your target audience frequents.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
We’ve just seen that most business owners lack the time, human resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts recommend. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited resources, time, and budget.
So, instead of using this approach …
(Posting content to individual channels is very time-consuming!)
Why not use this 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 once, and automate your content distribution to all other marketing channels.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social media sites and social bookmarking sites,
- Distribute content (and comments) 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 website or blog as explained in Part 2. Then, configure things as described in Part 3. After all this is in place, you then connect all of the dots using 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 quick look at some examples of traffic-generating plugins that can be used to:
- Syndicate content to social media sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Syndicate content automatically to other websites via RSS feeds
Jetpack by WordPress.com
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, GooglePlus, LinkedIn 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 useful functions.
After Jetpack has been installed, connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account (set up in Part 3.) …
(Make sure the Jetpack plugin is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Activate the Publicize feature on Jetpack)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, GooglePlus, and more …
(Distribute your content to several social accounts.)
After all settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize options show in the Publish section.)
Now, whenever you publish a new post, it will automatically be shared on every account you have set up …
(As soon as new posts are published, they will be automatically distributed online.)
Visit the plugin site to learn more about the benefits of this plugin: Jetpack
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The native WordPress commenting system allows your blog readers to interact with your website or blog, post new comments, reply to existing comments and participate in discussions as part of a social community.
You can enhance the WordPress default commenting feature with a third-party plugin like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrates with social media, helping to spread and share them around.
For example, using a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version) can help attract more comments and create more user engagement on your website or blog. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social rewards like the ability to add twitter usernames to comments, social enticements for sharing your content, ability to use keywords in the user name, and SEO backlinks. This plugin will visit the comment author’s website or blog while they are typing their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which they can include with their comment after clicking the submit button.
(CommentLuv can encourage a greater level of commenting and improve user engagement on your website or blog.)
To learn more about this WordPress plugin, visit the plugin site:
Social LinkMachine
(Social LinkMachine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
SocialLinkMachine is a WordPress plugin that allows you to syndicate content to dozens of social platforms, build backlinks, include relevant YouTube videos and images, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – syndicate and drip-feed content automatically to dozens of online websites)
With SocialLinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate and drip-feed your content to dozens of online websites, such as:
- Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Bitly, Linkagogo, Kippt, Reddit, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blogger, Overblog, Tribe, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Google Plus, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- Document Sharing: e.g. Issuu, Scribd, etc.
Go here to learn more about the benefits of using this plugin: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (in order to get useful information about your content distribution campaigns), we have created a comprehensive article listing many social media measurement tools that you may want to check out. To learn more, visit this page:
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 System: Content Distribution Process – Summary
Once you have your site and plugins set up and configured, all you need to do then is post new content on a consistent basis to automatically attract new traffic.
If you need great content ideas for your site, then subscribe to our email training series here:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the process. This step is covered in the next article in our WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part 4
To read more, click on the link below:
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"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie
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