WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint - Part 5 (Optimization)

Welcome to Part 5 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to grow your business online automatically using the WordPress CMS.

So far, we have covered the following in this series:

In Part One of this series, 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 new content regularly to begin bringing more traffic!)

In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site has been built using WordPress.

(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)

In Part 3, we focus on the configuration phase of the automation process. We configured hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …

(In Part 3 we show you how to configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically)

In Part Four, you learned how to set up various WordPress plugins that can drive web traffic automatically to your website.

(Publish once to WordPress and automate the distribution of your content to all other services!)

In this article, we discuss ways to optimize your traffic with different tools and strategies.

WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Traffic Optimization Systems

In addition to getting your WordPress site expertly configured, the key to generating successfully on a consistent basis is having a clear business vision, great digital planning, and good systems in place.

(Generating regular traffic is the result of a business vision, planning, and great systems)

Let’s briefly review the systems that will help you grow and manage your new traffic.

These include:

Marketing Systems – How you create new traffic for your website.
Technical Systems – How you keep your digital presence optimized for receiving new traffic.
Business Systems – How you manage and respond to new traffic.

(Use systems to grow, automate, optimize, and manage your web traffic)

Let’s review the above systems briefly:

Marketing Systems

Your marketing systems consist of the processes and strategies used to drive new traffic to your website. Your marketing systems can be tested by asking questions such as:

What is your online marketing strategy?
How will you apply your budget and resources to these channels?
How will you create and optimize your content, sales funnels, and run your marketing campaigns?
How will you test and measure the ROI of your online campaigns?

During the setup and configuration phase, you should have installed an analytics program (e.g. Google Analytics). If you’re just starting out, you may want to consider investing in some paid advertising (e.g. pay-per-click ads) to help you generate some initial actionable data, such as the keywords people are searching online to find your site, which you can use to create web content targeted specifically to your audience.

Technical Systems

Your technical systems and processes ensure that your digital presence remains up and running for receiving new traffic. There’s no point sending traffic to your site if your site is constantly down or your web pages are taking a very long time to load.

Your technical systems need to handle areas like webhosting, site maintenance and support, installing, configuring, and updating new applications (e.g. plugins), customization, integration, troubleshooting, etc.

Your technical systems can be tested by asking questions such as:

Who will look after my server?
Who is looking after my website and keeping my site, plugins, themes, etc. maintained and up-to-date?
Who will fix errors, troubleshoot problems, provide technical support and advice, etc. if you experience difficulties?

Many potential problems can be minimized if your website planning and setup and configuration phases have been done correctly. As with all technology, however, there will always be new problems. Your technical systems need to be robust enough to handle these.

Business Systems

You need good operational systems and processes to help you manage new traffic. These include:

Communication systems
Managing human and financial resources
Handling sales inquiries
Order fulfillment
Customer service/training
etc.

If you plan to outsource areas of your digital marketing and technical maintenance, then you will need systems in place for managing all outsourcing.

WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Traffic Loops

With clear business objectives and great systems in place, all you need to focus on is how to implement and optimize a “traffic loop”.

Let’s go through an example of implementing, optimizing, and further automating a traffic loop. Take a look at the chart below …

(An effective traffic loop)

Increase Reach & Visibility

Step 1 of the process is to increase visibility for your website or blog.

Useful Tips & Ideas

An expertly configured WordPress site will allow you to instantly share your content on traffic-getting sources like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. The easiest way to increase your reach and visibility online, therefore, is to simply publish more content through your expertly configured WordPress site.
As mentioned earlier, investing in some paid advertising (e.g. pay-per-click ads) can help generate some initial data, which you can use to create web content targeted specifically to your audience.
Repurpose your content to leverage the power, appeal, and reach of different media formats.
Continue learning about ways to bring visitors using methods like paid ads, social media, StumbleUpon, etc.

Plugins, Tools, And Strategies

See previous sections of this article series for many useful tools, plugins, and strategies we’ve already covered to help you reach more potential users.

Also, see other posts on this site to learn more about plugins that allow you to easily add the following to your WordPress website:

Share your posts online,
Run contests, offer discounts or downloads for likes/shares,
Add user generated content, feeds, etc.
Publish and distribute content online in other media formats (e.g. videos, PDF guides, audio, etc.)

Build Authority And Credibility

Getting more of your content published is a great first step, but for this activity to be really effective, your content needs to build authority and credibility with visitors.

Publishing authoritative content not only helps to establish your credibility, it also improves your chances of getting more people to link to it and share it around and hence more traffic.

Useful Tips

Create and publish content that will add value to your audience and showcase your expertise. This includes content that educates and informs readers, training content, user reviews, adding testimonials, etc.
Consider publishing PDF guides that you can sell or distribute online.

Tools And Strategies

If you need endless topics for posting content on your website or blog, then subscribe to our email training series on content marketing here:

Also, ask us about plugins that let you easily add the following to your WordPress site:

Legal Pages
Testimonials
Customer Support (e.g. Helpdesk, Live Chat, etc.)
Ratings
User Reviews
Badges/Certificates Of Recognition

Grow Influence And Engagement

As your business grows, you may want to consider developing “traffic on demand.” You can do this by building a list or starting your own community.

With “Traffic On Tap,” all of your traffic will come from an audience of existing customers or subscribers – people who already know you and trust you. Your influence and reputation can be used to generate new traffic with every post you publish, forum post you add, or broadcast you send out.

Useful Tips And Ideas

Encourage commenting and discussions on your site.
Add an autoresponder newsletter and encourage people to subscribe.
Add a paid or free membership site, online forum, or social community.
Start or join a Facebook/LinkedIn Group.

Plugins, Tools, & Strategies

There are many solutions and WordPress plugins that can help grow your influence and improve engagement. For example:

Autoresponders/Email Newsletters (e.g. Aweber, MailChimp, etc.)
Contact Forms, Live Chat
Forums & Discussion Groups (e.g. bbPress, BuddyPress)
Polls and Surveys
Webinars (e.g. Webinar JEO)
Comment sharing
Add media, image galleries, etc.

Identify Needs/Problems & Provide Solutions To These

If you take advantage of incoming traffic to listen to what your visitors need, you should have no problem developing new products and services, all of which can provide you with new opportunities to generate new sources of web traffic.

Useful Tips

Create an online training course.
Publish expert reports that you can sell or distribute online.
Add an e-commerce store to your business.

Plugins, Tools, & Methods

If you plan to provide products and services online (as opposed to just providing information), then some of the more useful plugins you may want to consider adding to your website or blog include:

Membership Sites (e.g. Wishlist Member, S2 Member, etc.)
e-Courses (e.g. Courseware)
Event Registrations (e.g. EventEspresso)

Analyze Data & Feedback

The final step of the process is the collection and analysis of data. Gathering and interpreting data from existing traffic lets you discover new ways to generate content that can bring you additional traffic.

Hopefully, by now you have already installed an analytics program like Google Analytics on your site. Make sure you can also understand the data.

WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Summary

All you have to do once you implement the above strategies is rinse and repeat, fine-tuning and refining your methods as you go to grow your traffic and get better your results.

In summary:

Begin with an expertly configured WordPress site backed by solid marketing, technical and business systems,
Implement a content marketing strategy (with some paid advertising to drive initial traffic and generate useful data) to increase your reach and visibility online,
Add plugins, list-building strategies, and other solutions as needed to help build authority, trust, and credibility, and also to improve engagement with visitors,
Promote any new solutions, products or services using your existing channels and strategies to generate additional streams of traffic,
Analyse your data and your results, automate your processes wherever possible, and begin the cycle again.

Hopefully, this information has given you a blueprint that will help you automate and optimize the process of driving traffic to your website and get better results online.