Welcome to Part Four of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to turn a website into an automated web traffic generating machine using the WordPress CMS.
So far, here is what we have covered in this article series:
In Part One, we explain why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to automatically begin attracting web traffic is publish web content on a regular basis!)
In Part 2, 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 everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In Part 3, we focus on configuring the system.
In this step, we configure all the settings (hosting, WordPress and external) that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 you learn how to configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that affect your website’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part 4, you will learn how to set up various plugins that can help get new visitors automatically to your website.
Why Automate The Traffic-Getting Process?
Depending on which expert you talk to, you could end up investing 1-2 hours or more every day posting content on social media in addition to trying to manage your business, your content and your web presence.
Many small business owners lack the time, resources and financial means to run a full-time marketing and content creation department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts advise. If you spent most of your time posting updates on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook in addition to planning and writing content for your blog or website, how would anything else in your business ever get done?
(Keeping a business running is how most small businesses spend their time. Source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many businesses spend most of their time keeping their businesses up and running. In addition to running a business, there’s also sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to remain competitive and make sales in order to survive.
Research done 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 use of social media was a 66% increase from the previous year, so if the same research was conducted today, the numbers would most likely be 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.
(Small businesses spend more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Image source: VerticalResponse)
As businesses spend more time on online marketing in order to compete and survive, this puts more and more pressure on businesses to focus their time on other equally vital areas …
(Businesses with limited resources, budget, and time and many areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
Another thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time promoting and marketing your business on various social sites, all of your efforts are going into virtual real estate that you have no control over. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or StumbleUpon. These companies can and will make decisions that impact your business without prior warning. Why invest so much time and effort building a business on rented real estate? With WordPress (self-hosted), you can control your own virtual real estate and distribute your content automatically to other sites.
Automating business processes to leverage time and increase productivity is nothing new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it since the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the availability of hundreds of new online marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for business owners, especially for those with limited resources, budgets, and time. For example:
- Which marketing channels should you focus more time, efforts, and your budget on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.) while ignoring your own website?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to market and promote your business on?
The Benefits Of Automating The Traffic-Getting Process With WordPress
What I’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 invest more time, efforts, and budget on,
- Invest most of your time and efforts building your own asset 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 recommend staying away from all black hat techniques, software, websites, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of companies like Twitter, Facebook, Google.
(Automating your web traffic does not require the use of black hat techniques!)
The focus of this series of articles is to show you how to be smart with your limited resources and automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and marketing 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
As we’ve just seen in the previous section, many small businesses lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online experts prescribe. 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 different marketing channels individually can be very time-consuming!)
Why not use a smarter, time-saving approach like 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 once, and automate your content distribution to all other marketing channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social channels and bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute comments and content 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 get all of this done?
Simple … first, set up your WordPress website or blog as explained in Part Two. Then, expertly configure it as explained in Part 3. After all this is in place, you then connect all of the dots using plugins like the ones shown below.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Traffic-Getting Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at some plugins that can:
- Post content to social sites and social bookmarking websites
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Post content via RSS feeds to other web properties
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, 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 installing Jetpack, you will need to connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account you set up in Part Three …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Activate the Publicize feature)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, LinkedIn, and more …
(Publicize your posts to various social media sites.)
After all settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize settings in your Publish box.)
Now, whenever you publish new content, it will automatically get shared on every account you have set up …
(As soon as new posts are published, they are automatically syndicated online.)
This is a hands-free way to get more exposure for your content online on social media sites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The built-in WordPress commenting system allows your visitors to interact with your website, post comments, reply to other users and engage with your content.
You can enhance the WordPress native commenting feature with a number of 3rd-party plugins that integrate your comments with social media, helping to spread and share them online.
For example, with a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version), you can make your blog more attractive to commenters by offering them a choice of backlinks if they tweet, +1, or like your content. This plugin will visit the comment author’s website or blog while they are entering their comment and retrieve their most recent blog posts, which they can choose to include at the bottom of their comment when they click the submit button.
(CommentLuv can attract more comments and web traffic and improve user engagement on your web site.)
Visit the plugin website to learn more about using this powerful plugin:
Social Link Machine
(Social LinkMachine – Content distribution plugin)
Social Link Machine is a plugin that lets you automatically syndicate content to many social websites, build backlinks, include relevant YouTube videos and images, and 2nd-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – drip-feed your content to over 30 authority sites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically drip-feed your content to dozens of online platforms, including:
- Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Deviantart, Diigo, Plurk, Scoop.it, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogs: e.g. Blog.com, Rebel Mouse, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Google Plus, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- Document Sharing Platforms: e.g. Issuu, Gett, etc.
To learn more about this WordPress plugin, go here: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (so you can get useful information about your content marketing campaigns), we have created a detailed article where we explore a number of social media tracking tools that are worth knowing about. To learn more, visit this page:
The above are just some examples of the many content distribution plugins that are available to WordPress users.
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 Syndication Process – Summary
Once your site and plugins have been set up and configured, all you then have to do to begin attracting traffic is add great content regularly.
If you need endless content ideas for your site, then subscribe to our FREE email training series on growing your business online 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 our series.
This is the end of Section Four
To read more, click on the link below:
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