Welcome to Part 4 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to turn a site 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 of this article series, we explain why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is publish content consistently to generate web traffic!)
In Part 2, we discuss the setup phase of the automation process. We explain 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 existing website is built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In Part 3, we look at important configuration decisions.
In this step, we configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that can affect your site’s traffic-getting ability …
(In Part Three we show you how to configure all the settings (hosting, internal and external) that affect your site’s traffic-getting ability)
In Part 4, we look at ways to automate the traffic-generation process with plugins.
Why Automate Your Traffic-Getting Process?
Depending on which marketing expert you listen to, you could find yourself trying to spend 1-2 hours every day (or more) promoting your business on social media.
Many 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 online marketing experts are advising. If you spent half a day checking Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook in addition to planning and writing articles for your blog or website, how would you get anything else in your business done?
(Small business owners spend most of their working hours keeping their businesses up and running. Infographic: 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 stay competitive and grow in order to survive.
Marketing research done by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- 43% of all businesses surveyed spent six or more hours each week on social media (the other half of businesses surveyed using social media 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 most likely be significantly 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 are spending more time marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic: VerticalResponse.com)
As small 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 equally vital areas …
(Businesses with limited budget, resources, and time and many areas to focus on need to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
Another important thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time social websites, all of your efforts are going into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest. These companies often will make decisions that impact your business without requiring your input. Why invest so much time and effort building content on someone else’s asset? With a self-hosted WordPress website, you can control your own virtual real estate and publish your content automatically to other sites.
Automating systems and process to save time is nothing new. Businesses have been doing it since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the increased availability of so many new channels for promoting and marketing a business creates a number of dilemmas for business owners and business managers, especially for those with limited marketing budget, time, and resources. For example:
- Which channels should you focus more of your efforts, time, and 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 neglecting your own website?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to include in your marketing strategy?
The Benefits Of Automating Your Traffic Generation With WordPress
What we’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula that lets you automate your traffic generation with WordPress.
With this strategy, you will be able to:
- Save time creating web content and social media,
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary web marketing costs,
- Determine which channels you should focus more of your efforts, budget, and time 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 strategies, software, websites, and anything that violates the terms of service and policies of sites like Twitter, Google, Facebook, etc..
(Automating your web traffic doesn’t have to involve using black hat methods!)
What we are focusing in this article is to show you how to be smart with your resources and automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and marketing efforts, and get additional exposure online from websites visited 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, most business owners lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts advise doing. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited budget, time, and resources.
So, instead of choosing this approach, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to different marketing channels one by one can be very time-consuming!)
Why not do 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 the distribution of your content to all other marketing channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social media sites and bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute content (and comments) 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 site as shown in Part 2. Then, get it all configured as explained in Part Three. After all this is in place, you can then automate the content distribution with plugins like the ones discussed below.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Traffic Plugins
Let’s take a look now at a few WordPress plugins that can:
- Distribute content to social media sites and social bookmarking sites
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Syndicate content via RSS feeds to other websites
Jetpack by WordPress.com
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn 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 functions.
After Jetpack has been installed, connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account you set up in Part 3 …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate a feature called Publicize …
(Activate the Publicize feature)
Configure this section to automatically share your posts on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, GooglePlus, and more …
(Publicize your content automatically to various social media accounts.)
After all of the plugin and account settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize options in the Publish 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 new posts will be automatically shared online.)
Visit this site to learn more about this plugin: Jetpack Plugin
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The native WordPress commenting system lets your site users interact with your website or blog, post new comments, reply to existing comments and engage with your content as part of a social community.
You can expand the WordPress native commenting feature with a 3rd-party commenting plugin that integrates your comments with social media, helping to spread and share them online.
For example, with a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version), you can improve user engagement on your web site. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social reward features like using keywords in the name, social enticements for content sharing, the ability to add twitter names to comments, and SEO backlinks. This plugin will visit the website of the comment author while they enter their comment and retrieve their most recent blog posts, which they can include with their comment when they click the submit button.
(CommentLuv Pro version can attract more comments and visitors and create more user engagement on your website.)
To learn more about the benefits of using this plugin, visit this site:
Social Link Machine
(SocialLinkMachine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social Link Machine is a WordPress plugin that lets you drip-feed content, build backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and 2nd-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – syndicate your content to dozens of authority platforms)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate your content to many traffic-generating sites, like:
- Social Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Bitly, Folkd, Kippt, Stumbleupon, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blog.com, Overblog, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Google Plus, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- Document Sharing Platforms: e.g. Docdroid, Gett, etc.
Visit this site to learn more about the benefits of using this plugin: Social Link Machine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (so you can get useful information about your content marketing efforts), we have created a comprehensive article listing over 30 social media measurement tools and technologies that are worth knowing about. See this page for more details:
The above are just a few 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: Content Syndication Phase – Summary
Once you have your website and plugins configured and set up, all you need to do to generate web traffic is add web content consistently.
We have created an entire email training series designed to help you never run out of content for posting to your site:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the web-traffic generation process. This step is addressed in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Four
To continue reading about this topic, 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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