Welcome to Part Four of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using the WordPress CMS.
So far, we have covered the following in this series:
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is publish fresh content on a consistent basis to generate web traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase of the blueprint. We helped you understand the best way to start 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 existing website has been 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 looked at the configuration phase of the traffic automation blueprint.
Here, we configure all the settings that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 we explain how to configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In Part Four, we will look at ways to automate your traffic using a number of WordPress plugins.
Why Automating The Traffic Generation Makes Sense
Depending on which marketing guru you talk to, you could find yourself investing 1-2 hours per day (or more) promoting your business on social media.
Many small businesses simply lack the time, human resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts are recommending. If you spend hours checking Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter in addition to researching and writing articles for your blog or website, how does anything else in your business get done?
(Keeping their business up and running is how most small businesses spend their working hours. 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 remain competitive and grow in order to survive.
A study of small businesses conducted in 2012 by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- 43% of all small businesses surveyed spent six or more hours per 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 conducted today, the numbers would probably be even 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 was the activity that consumed the most time online for all businesses surveyed.
(Businesses are spending more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Image source: VerticalResponse)
As 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 vital areas …
(Businesses with limited budgets, time, and resources and many different business areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
One other thing to consider 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 StumbleUpon. These companies often will make decisions that can significantly impact your business without first consulting you. Why invest so much effort and time building content on rented real estate? With WordPress (self-hosted), you can have complete control of your own virtual real estate and distribute your content automatically to other websites.
Automating processes to leverage time and increase productivity is not new. Businesses have been doing it since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the exponential growth online marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners, especially for those with limited time, resources, and marketing budget. For example:
- Which of these marketing channels should you focus more of your efforts, time, and budget on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. YouTube, LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc.) while neglecting your own domain?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to include in your marketing strategy?
The Benefits Of Automating The Web Traffic Generation Process With WordPress
What we’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective method that allows you to automate your 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 online marketing channels,
- Determine which marketing channels you should focus more of your budget, time, and your efforts 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 websites, software, techniques, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of services like Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc..
(Automating your web traffic does not need to involve the use of black hat methods!)
What we are focusing in 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 websites frequented by your target audience.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
We’ve just seen in the previous section how many small business owners lack the time, resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many experts prescribe. What you want to do, then, is work smart within your limitations.
So, instead of choosing this approach, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to individual marketing channels is very time-consuming!)
Why not opt for this method 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:
- Automatically distribute content to social channels and social bookmarking sites,
- Distribute content (and comments) automatically to other blogs and web 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 do all of this?
Simple … first, set up your site as explained in Part 2. Then, expertly configure it as described in Part 3. After all this is in place, you then connect all of the dots using plugins such as the ones discussed in the following section.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic System – Traffic Plugins
Let’s take a brief look at a number of traffic-generation WordPress plugins that can help to:
- Syndicate content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking websites
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Post content automatically to other websites via RSS feeds
Jetpack WordPress Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, GooglePlus and more as soon as you publish your content using a WordPress plugin like JetPack.
Download URL: https://jetpack.com/
Jetpack is a free WordPress plugin with many useful functions.
After Jetpack has been installed, connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account you set up in Part 3 …
(Connect Jetpack 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 Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and more …
(Share your posts on various social media accounts.)
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 account options displayed in your Publish section.)
Now, whenever you publish new content, it will automatically be shared online to all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as new content is published, it will be automatically syndicated online.)
To learn more about the benefits of this plugin, visit the plugin site: Jetpack Plugin
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The WordPress native commenting system allows your site users to engage with your website, post comments, reply to other users and participate in discussions.
You can expand the WordPress native commenting feature with 3rd-party plugins that integrate with social media, helping to spread and share your content online.
For example, with a plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version), you can create more user engagement on your web site. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social reward features like the ability to add twitter usernames to comments, search-indexable backlinks, ability to use keywords in the name, and social enticements for sharing content. This plugin will visit the website of the comment author while they are entering their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which can be included at the bottom of their comment when they click submit.
(CommentLuv can help attract more comments and traffic and create more user engagement on your website or blog.)
To learn more about the benefits of using this plugin, go here:
Social LinkMachine
(SocialLinkMachine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social LinkMachine is a set-and-forget WordPress plugin that allows you to syndicate your content to many authority platforms, build backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – syndicate content automatically to many social websites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically drip-feed your content to many online sites, including:
- Social Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Delicious, Folkd, Kippt, Reddit, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blog.com, Sett, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- PDF Sharing Platforms: e.g. Docdroid, Sendspace, etc.
Visit the plugin website to learn more about this plugin: SocialLinkMachine
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 over 30 social media tracking tools and technologies that are worth knowing about. Go here for more details:
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 Process – Summary
Once your WordPress site and plugins have been fully set up and configured, all you need to do to attract more web traffic is post content on a consistent basis.
If you need great content ideas for your website or blog, then subscribe to our FREE email training course on growing your business with content marketing here:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the web-traffic generation process. This step is covered in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Part Four
To read the rest of this article series, click on the link below:
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