Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to turn a website into an automated traffic generating machine using the WordPress CMS.
So far, here is what we have covered in this series:
In Part One, we explain why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is add fresh content on a regular basis to attract more traffic!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase of the traffic automation process. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing website was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In Part Three, we focused on configuring WordPress.
Here, we configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part Three you will configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that affect your site’s traffic-getting ability)
In this section of the series, we will discuss ways to automate your traffic using various plugins.
Why Automate The Traffic-Getting Process?
Depending on which marketing expert you listen to, you could end up investing 1-2 hours every day (or more) promoting your business on social media.
Most small businesses lack the time, human resources and financial means to employ the services of a full-time marketing and content creation department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts are prescribing. If you spend hours checking LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook in addition to researching and writing content for your blog or website, how will you get anything in your business done?
(Small businesses spend most of their working hours just keeping their businesses up and running. Infographic source: NFIB)
Small 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 remain competitive and grow in order to survive.
Marketing research done in 2012 by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- 43% of all businesses surveyed spent around six 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 research was conducted today, the numbers would most likely be even higher.
- More than half of all businesses surveyed spent 1-3 hours or more to create a blog post.
- Finding and posting content for social media consumed the most time online.
(Businesses spend more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Source: VerticalResponse.com)
As small businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time marketing and promoting themselves online in order to compete and survive, this puts more and more of a squeeze on businesses to focus their time on other equally important areas …
(Businesses with limited time, resources, and marketing budgets and many different areas to focus on have to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
Another important thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time promoting and marketing your business on various social media 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 sites can make decisions that affect your business without prior warning. Why invest so much effort and time building a business on rented real estate? With WordPress, you can have complete control of your own real estate and post your content automatically to other online accounts.
Automating business processes to leverage time and increase productivity is nothing new. Businesses have been doing it ever since the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the increasing availability of hundreds of new channels for marketing and promoting a business creates a number of dilemmas for business owners and marketing managers, especially for those with limited budgets, time, and resources. For example:
- Which of these marketing channels do you focus more of your efforts, time, and your budget 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 Generation Process With WordPress
What we’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective strategy for automating the traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this method, 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 channels you should invest more of your efforts, budget, and your time on,
- Invest most of your time 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 software, websites, methods, and anything that violates the terms of service and policies of services like Pinterest, Facebook, Google.
(Automating your web traffic does not require using black hat methods!)
What we are focusing here is to show you how to 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
We’ve just seen that most small business owners lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many experts advise doing. 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 by one can be extremely time-consuming!)
Why not use this time-saving strategy 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 the distribution of your content to all other services.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social media services and 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 get all this done?
Simple … first, set up your website or blog as explained in Part Two. Then, get it configured as shown in Part Three. Once all of this is in place, you can then automate the content distribution using plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at some plugins that can help:
- Distribute content to social sites and social bookmarking websites
- Post comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content automatically via RSS feeds to other online properties
Jetpack Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, GooglePlus, 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 useful features.
After Jetpack has been installed, connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account you 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)
You can share your posts on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and more …
(Distribute your posts automatically 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 displays in your post publishing section.)
Now, whenever you publish new content, it will automatically be shared online to every account you have set up …
(As soon as you publish, your posts are automatically distributed online.)
Go here for more details about using this handy plugin: Jetpack by WordPress.com
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The WordPress commenting feature lets your site users interact with your website, post new comments, reply to existing comments and participate in discussions.
You can expand the WordPress native commenting feature using a number of 3rd-party plugins like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrate your comments with social media, helping to share and spread them online.
For example, with a plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version), you can improve user engagement on your web site. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social rewards like ability to use keywords in the user name, the ability to add twitter usernames to comments, backlinks, and social enticements for content-sharing. This plugin will visit the comment author’s website or blog while they are entering their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which can be included below their comment after clicking submit.
(CommentLuv can help attract more comments and improve user engagement on your web site.)
To learn more about this great plugin, go here:
Social LinkMachine
(SocialLinkMachine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social Link Machine is a plugin for WordPress that allows you to automatically syndicate your content to dozens of online sites, build diverse anchor text backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and create 2nd-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – syndicate your content to dozens of social websites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate content to over 30 online platforms, including:
- Social Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Bitly, Folkd, Plurk, Reddit, etc.
- Blogs: e.g. Blogger, Rebel Mouse, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Google Plus, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- PDF Sharing: e.g. Issuu, Sendspace, etc.
To learn more about this handy plugin, visit the plugin website: 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 written a comprehensive article on social media monitoring tools and technologies that you may want to check out here:
The above are just a few 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 Stage – Summary
Once you have your site and plugins expertly configured and set up, all you need to do is add web content on a consistent basis to automatically bring more traffic.
We have created an entire email series designed to help you never run out of great content for posting to your site:
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 series.
This is the end of Section 4
To continue reading this article, click here:
- Web Traffic Blueprint Part 5 – How To Turn Your WordPress Blog Into An Automated Web Traffic Machine
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