Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to create an automated web traffic generating machine using WordPress.
So far, here is what we have covered in this article series:
In Part 1, we describe the traffic automation process, and explain why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to begin attracting new traffic is add content regularly!)
In Part Two, we look at critical setup decisions. We explain the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In Part 3, we looked at the configuration phase.
In this step, we configure all the settings that affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part Three you will configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In Part 4, we discuss ways to automate the traffic-getting process using a number of WordPress plugins.
Why Automating The Traffic Generation Makes Sense
Depending on who you get your advice from, you could find yourself investing an hour a day (or more) promoting your business on social media in addition to running your business, creating content and managing your web presence.
Many small business owners simply 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 are recommending. If you spend half your day posting updates on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook in addition to writing articles for your website or blog, how can anything else in your business get done?
(Small businesses spend most of their working hours keeping their businesses up and running. Infographic source: NFIB)
Small businesses spend most of their time just keeping 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 make sales in order to survive.
Research done in 2012 by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- Almost half of all small businesses surveyed spent 6 or more hours each week on social media (the other half spent even more time – between 6 and 21+ hours per week). This was a 66% increase from the previous year, so if the same research was done today, the numbers would probably be higher.
- More than half of all small businesses surveyed spent 1-3 hours or more to create 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. Infographic source: VerticalResponse)
As small businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time marketing and promoting themselves online as a matter of business survival and competition, this leaves less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other areas …
(Businesses with limited marketing budgets, resources, and time and many areas to focus on need to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
Another important thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time social sites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. These sites can and will make decisions that can significantly affect your business without consulting you. Why invest so much effort and time building content on someone else’s asset? With a self-hosted WordPress website, you can have complete control of your own real estate and post your content automatically to other online accounts.
Automating systems and process to save time is not new. Businesses have been doing it ever since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the exponential growth channels for promoting and marketing a business online creates a number of dilemmas for business owners and marketing managers, especially for those with limited time, marketing budget, and resources. For example:
- Which of these channels should you invest more efforts, budget, and time 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 include in your marketing strategy?
The Benefits Of Automating Your Traffic-Getting Process With WordPress
What we’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula that allows you to automate your web traffic generation process with WordPress.
With this strategy, you will be able to:
- Save time creating content for your website 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 budget, efforts, and your time on,
- Invest most of your 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 urge you to avoid using black hat sites, strategies, tools, and anything designed to flaunt or violate the policies and terms of service of companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc..
(Automating your web traffic does not require the use of black hat techniques!)
What we are focusing here is not to game web services or break their terms of service, but to show you how to automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and marketing efforts, and increase your exposure online to sites that your target audience frequents.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
We’ve just seen that many small businesses lack the time, resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts are prescribing. 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 marketing channels one at a time is extremely time-consuming!)
Why not choose this one 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 marketing channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social sites and social bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute comments and content to other blogs and online 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 site as shown in Part Two. Then, get everything configured as explained in Part Three. After all this is in place, you can then automate various processes with plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Plugins
Let’s take a look now at a number of traffic-generation WordPress plugins that can:
- Distribute content to social sites and social bookmarking sites
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content via RSS to other websites
Jetpack Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ 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 features.
After installing Jetpack, you will need to connect the plugin to the 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 Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, GooglePlus, and more …
(Distribute your content to several social networks.)
After configuring all of the account and plugin settings, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account details show in the post publishing box.)
Now, as soon as you publish new content, it will automatically get shared on every account you have set up …
(As soon as content is published, it is automatically syndicated online.)
To learn more about this handy plugin, visit this site: Jetpack
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The native WordPress commenting system lets your visitors interact with your web site, post new comments, reply to other users and engage with your content.
You can expand the WordPress native commenting feature using a 3rd-party plugin that integrates with social media, helping to share and spread them online.
For example, with a 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 type their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which they can choose to include with their comment after clicking submit.
(CommentLuv can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your website or blog.)
Visit this website to learn more about using this great plugin:
SocialLinkMachine
(Social LinkMachine – Set-and-forget content distribution plugin for WordPress)
Social LinkMachine is a WordPress plugin that lets you automatically syndicate and drip-feed your content to many online websites, build anchor text backlinks, include relevant videos and images, and 2nd-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social Link Machine – syndicate and drip-feed content automatically to many traffic-generating sites)
With Social Link Machine installed, you can automatically drip-feed content to many traffic-generating sites, like:
- Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Delicious, Linkagogo, Plurk, Stumbleupon, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Livejournal, Rebel Mouse, Tribe, etc.
- Social Platforms: Google Plus, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- Document Sharing: e.g. Issuu, Sendspace, etc.
Go here for more information about using this plugin: Social Link Machine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (so you can get useful information about your content marketing campaigns), we have created a detailed article listing several social media measurement tools that are worth knowing about. More information:
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 Sharing Phase – Summary
Once your website and plugins have been set up and configured, all you need to do then to begin attracting new web traffic is add great content on a consistent basis.
If you need great content ideas for your website or blog, we recommend subscribing to our FREE email training series 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 Part Four
To read more, click here:
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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