Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site 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 site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to drive more web traffic is publish fresh content regularly!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase of this system. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In Part Three, we focused on configuring WordPress.
Here, we configure all the settings that can affect your website’s traffic-getting ability …
(In Part Three you learn how to configure all the settings that affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In Part 4, we look at ways to automate your traffic using various WordPress plugins.
Why Automating The Traffic-Getting Process Makes Sense
Depending on which online marketing expert you get your advice from, you could end up trying to spend an hour or more every day posting content on social media.
Most small businesses simply lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts are prescribing. If you spend most of your time checking LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook in addition to planning and writing content for your blog or website, how will you get anything else in your business done?
(Keeping a business up and running is how most small business owners spend their time. Infographic source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many business owners spend most of their time trying to keep their businesses up and running. On top of this, there’s also sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to remain competitive and make sales in order to survive.
A study of small businesses conducted by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- 43% of all 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 usage of social media was a 66% increase from the previous year, so if the same survey was done today, the figures would most likely be significantly 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 the activity that consumed the most time online for all businesses surveyed.
(Small businesses spend more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic: VerticalResponse.com)
As businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time promoting and marketing themselves online as a matter of business survival and competition, this puts more and more pressure on businesses to focus their time on other important areas …
(Businesses with limited time, resources, and budget and many business areas to focus on need to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
Another thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time social media websites, all of your efforts are going into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. These sites often will make decisions that can significantly impact your business without prior warning. Why invest so much effort and time building a business on someone else’s real estate? With a self-hosted WordPress site, you can control your own virtual real estate and distribute your content automatically to other sites.
Investing in automation to save time and increase productivity is not new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the increased availability of so many new channels for marketing and promoting a business creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners, especially for those with limited marketing budgets, time, and resources. For example:
- Which marketing channels should you invest more of your 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. Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.) while neglecting your own domain?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to promote and market your business on?
The Benefits Of Automating Your Web Traffic Generation With WordPress
What we’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula that lets you automate 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 channels,
- Determine which marketing channels you should invest more of your time, efforts, and budget on,
- Invest most of your time building your own asset and still benefit from other people’s marketing channels.
Many automated 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 strongly recommend avoiding black hat sites, techniques, software, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc..
(Automating your web traffic doesn’t require the use of black hat techniques!)
The purpose of this article is to show you how to automate your content distribution in order to leverage your time and efforts, and get additional exposure online from websites that your target audience frequents.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
We’ve just seen that most businesses lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts prescribe. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited resources, budget, and time.
So, instead of doing this …
(Posting content to individual channels is very time-consuming!)
Why not opt for a smarter, time-saving strategy like the one shown below 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 media sites and bookmarking sites,
- Distribute content (and comments) automatically 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 do all of this?
Simple … first, set up your website or blog as described in Part Two. Then, configure everything as shown in Part 3. Once all of this is in place, you can then connect all of the dots using plugins like the ones listed in the following section.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Traffic Plugins
Let’s take a brief look at a few WordPress plugins that can be used to:
- Distribute content to social media sites and social bookmarking websites
- Post comments automatically to other blogs
- Post content to other sites via RSS feeds
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, LinkedIn and more as soon as you publish new 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 …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate a feature called Publicize …
(Activate the Publicize feature)
You can share your posts on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, and more …
(Share your content automatically on several social media accounts.)
After configuring all plugin and account settings, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize settings show in the post publishing section.)
Now, as soon as you publish a new post, it will automatically be shared online to all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as content is published, it is automatically shared online.)
Go here to learn more about the benefits of using this plugin: Jetpack Plugin
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The built-in WordPress commenting system allows your visitors to interact with your site, post comments, reply to other users and engage with your content as part of a community.
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 your content around.
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 rewards like social enticements for sharing content, using keywords in the name, SEO backlinks, and adding twitter handles to comments. This plugin will visit the website or blog of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their latest blog posts, which they can choose to include at the bottom of their comment when they click submit.
(CommentLuv Premium version can encourage a greater level of commenting and improve user engagement on your website.)
To learn more about this WordPress plugin, visit this site:
Social Link Machine
(SocialLinkMachine – Content distribution plugin for WordPress)
SocialLinkMachine is a plugin that lets you automatically syndicate content, build diverse anchor text backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and create 2nd-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – syndicate and drip-feed content automatically to many social sites)
With SocialLinkMachine installed, you can automatically drip-feed your content to many social sites, including:
- Social Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Deviantart, Folkd, Instapaper, Reddit, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogs: e.g. Blog.com, Rebel Mouse, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- PDF Sharing: e.g. Issuu, Gett, etc.
To learn more about the benefits of using this great plugin, go here: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (so you can get actionable information about your content marketing efforts), we have written a detailed article about social media tracking tools and technologies that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives. Go here to learn more:
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 System: Automated Content Sharing Process – Summary
Once your website or blog and plugins have been configured and set up, all you have to do to bring more traffic is post great content regularly.
If you need help coming up with topics for content that you can post on your site, we recommend subscribing to our email training course on growing your business online with content marketing here:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize as much of the process as you can. This step is covered in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Section Four
To read the rest of this article series, click here:
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