Welcome to Part 4 of our Website 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 1 of this article series, we explain why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to automatically begin attracting traffic is post fresh content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase of the automation process. We helped you understand 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 site was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In Part 3, we discuss configuring WordPress.
In this step, we configure all the settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part Three we show you how to configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that affect your website’s traffic-getting ability)
In this article, we look at ways to automate your traffic using various plugins.
Why Automate The Traffic-Getting Process?
Depending on who you talk to, you could find yourself investing a couple of hours or more per day posting content on social media.
Many small business owners simply lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts are recommending. If you were to spend half a day checking Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook in addition to researching and writing content for your website or blog, how would anything else in your business get done?
(Keeping a business running is how most small business owners spend their working hours. Image 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 also 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 each week on social media (the rest 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 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.
(Small businesses spend more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Image source: VerticalResponse.com)
As businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time on online marketing in order to compete and survive, this leaves less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other vital areas …
(Businesses with limited resources, marketing budget, and time and many areas to focus on need to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
One other 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 have no control over. You don’t own Facebook, Twitter, or StumbleUpon. These companies often will make decisions that can dramatically affect your business without consulting you. Why invest so much time and effort building a business on someone else’s asset? With WordPress (self-hosted), you can control your own real estate and distribute your content automatically to other online accounts.
Automating processes to leverage time is nothing new. Businesses have been doing it since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the exponential growth channels for marketing and promoting a business creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners, especially for those with limited budgets, time, and resources. For example:
- Which marketing channels should you invest more of your budget, time, and efforts 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 promote and market your business on?
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 strategy for automating the traffic generation with WordPress.
With this strategy, 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 channels you should invest more of your efforts, time, and budget 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 strongly urge you to avoid using black hat techniques, solutions, websites, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, etc..
(Web traffic automation doesn’t have to involve using black hat methods!)
The purpose of this article is not to game online services or flaunt their terms of service, but to show you how to automate your content distribution in order to leverage your time and marketing efforts, and get additional exposure online from sites used 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 business owners lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts recommend. What you want to do, then, is to be strategic and work smart within your limited resources.
So, instead of posting content to different marketing channels, which can be very time-consuming …
(Posting content to different services 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 media services and social bookmarking sites,
- Distribute comments and content automatically to other blogs and online 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 do all of this?
Simple … first, set up your WordPress website or blog as explained in Part 2. Then, configure your site settings as described in Part Three. Once all of this is in place, you then automate these processes using plugins such as the ones listed in the section below.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Traffic Generation Plugins
Let’s take a brief look at some examples of traffic-generation WordPress plugins that can be used to:
- Post content to social sites and social bookmarking sites
- Post comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content automatically via RSS to other sites
Jetpack by WordPress.com
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 loads of useful features.
After Jetpack has been installed, you will need to connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account you set up in Part Three …
(Make sure the Jetpack plugin is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Activate the Publicize feature)
You can share your posts on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and more …
(Share your posts on various social media accounts.)
After configuring all account and plugin settings, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account details in your publishing box.)
Now, whenever you publish a new post, it will automatically be shared on every account you have set up …
(As soon as new posts are published, they will be automatically distributed online.)
Visit this website to learn more about this plugin: Jetpack
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The built-in WordPress commenting system allows your blog readers to engage with your website or blog, post comments, reply to existing comments and participate in discussions as part of a social community.
You can expand the WordPress default commenting feature using 3rd-party plugins like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrate with social media, helping to spread and share them around.
For example, with a plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version), you can create more user engagement on your website. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social rewards like adding twitter handles to comments, social enticements for content-sharing, using keywords in the name, and search-indexable backlinks. This plugin will visit the site of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their last blog posts, which can be included with their comment after clicking submit.
(CommentLuv can encourage a greater level of commenting and improve user engagement on your site.)
Visit this site for more details about the benefits of this powerful plugin:
Social LinkMachine
(SocialLinkMachine – Content distribution plugin for WordPress)
SocialLinkMachine is a plugin for WordPress that lets you automatically drip-feed your content to over 30 social platforms, build anchor text backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and create social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social Link Machine – syndicate your content to many social platforms)
With Social Link Machine installed, you can automatically drip-feed your content to dozens of traffic-generating platforms, such as:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Deviantart, Linkagogo, Instapaper, Zotero, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Livejournal, Rebel Mouse, Tribe, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Google Plus, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- PDF Sharing Platforms: e.g. Issuu, Scribd, etc.
To learn more about this great plugin, visit the plugin website: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (so you can get useful information about your content marketing efforts), we have written a comprehensive article listing many social media tracking tools and technologies that are worth checking out and knowing about. To learn more, go here:
The above are just some 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 System: Automated Content Syndication Process – Summary
Once you have your website or blog and plugins configured and fully set up, all you need to do then to begin attracting new traffic is post web content on a regular basis.
We have created an entire email training series aimed at helping you come up with endless content ideas for your website or blog:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the process. This step is explained in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Section Four
To read the rest of this article series, click here:
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"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya
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