Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to grow your business online automatically using the WordPress CMS platform.
So far, here is what we have covered in this series:
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained 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 to begin attracting traffic is post new content consistently!)
In Part Two, we focus on the setup phase. We explain the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In Part Three, we discuss important configuration decisions.
In this step, we configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 you will configure all the settings that can affect your website’s traffic-getting ability)
In this section, we discuss ways to automate traffic generation using WordPress plugins.
Why It Makes Sense To Automate Your Traffic-Getting Process
Depending on which marketing gurus you talk to, you could end up spending 1-2 hours per day (or more) promoting your business on social media, as well as running your business, creating content and managing your online presence.
Most small business owners simply lack the time, resources and financial means to run a full-time marketing and content creation department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts recommend. If you spend most of your time posting updates on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn in addition to planning and writing articles for your blog or website, how will you get anything in your business done?
(Keeping a business up and running is how most small business owners spend their working hours. Infographic: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Small business owners spend most of their working hours just keeping their businesses up and running. On top of this, there’s also sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to remain competitive and grow in order to survive.
A study of small businesses done by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- Almost half of all small businesses surveyed spent at least 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 done today, the figures would probably 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 spend more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Source: VerticalResponse)
As businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time marketing and promoting themselves online in order to compete and survive, this puts more and more pressure on businesses to prioritize their time on other areas …
(Businesses with limited resources, time, and budgets and many different areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
Another thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time marketing and promoting your business on a number of social media websites, all of your efforts are going into virtual real estate that you have no control over. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. These sites can make decisions that affect your business without consulting you. Why invest so much effort and time building a business on someone else’s real estate? With WordPress, you can have complete control of your own real estate and publish your content automatically to other online properties.
Automating systems and process to leverage time and increase productivity is nothing new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it ever since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the exponential growth channels for promoting and marketing a business creates a number of dilemmas for small business owners, especially for those with limited resources, time, and marketing budget. For example:
- Which channels should you invest more of your time, efforts, and budget on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that you do not control (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.) while ignoring the benefits of building content on your own website?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to promote and market your business on?
The Benefits Of Automating The Traffic-Getting Process With WordPress
What we’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective method that allows you to automate the traffic generation process with WordPress.
With this formula, you will be able to:
- Save time creating content for your website or blog and social media,
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary online marketing costs,
- Determine which marketing channels you should focus more of your time, budget, and your efforts on,
- Invest most of your time and efforts 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 recommend avoiding black hat software, sites, strategies, and anything that violates the terms of service and policies of services like Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc..
(Web traffic automation doesn’t need to involve the use of black hat methods!)
The purpose of this article series is not to manipulate 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
We’ve just seen that many small business owners lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many experts are prescribing. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited budget, time, and resources.
So, instead of posting content to each service, which can be extremely time-consuming …
(Posting content to individual channels is very time-consuming!)
Why not use this time-saving method 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 channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social media sites 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 site as described in Part Two. Then, get it all configured as described in Part 3. After all this is in place, you can then automate various processes using plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Traffic Generation Plugins
Let’s take a brief look at a few plugins that can help:
- Post content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking websites
- Post comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content automatically to other websites via RSS
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, 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, you will need to connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account (as described in Part 3.) …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate a feature called Publicize …
(Activate the Publicize feature)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, GooglePlus, and more …
(Share your content automatically on various social accounts.)
After configuring all of the plugin and account settings, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account options in the 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 will be automatically distributed online.)
Jetpack provides you with a hands-free way to create more exposure for your content online on social media sites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
WordPress has a built-in commenting feature that lets your site users interact with your website, post new comments, reply to existing comments and participate in discussions.
You can expand the WordPress default commenting feature using third-party commenting plugins like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrate with social media, helping to spread and share your content around.
For example, a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version) can help attract more comments and improve user engagement on your web site. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social reward features like backlinks, adding twitter handles to comments, social enticements for content-sharing, and ability to use keywords in the name. This plugin will visit the site of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their most recent blog posts, which can be included below their comment when they click submit.
(CommentLuv Pro version can encourage a greater level of commenting and improve user engagement on your web site.)
Visit this site to learn more about the benefits of using this plugin:
Social Link Machine
(Social LinkMachine – Content distribution plugin for WordPress)
SocialLinkMachine is a set-and-forget WordPress plugin that lets you automatically syndicate your content, build backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and create social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – syndicate and drip-feed your content to many authority sites)
With Social Link Machine installed, you can automatically drip-feed your content to over 30 social websites, including:
- Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Deviantart, Diigo, Plurk, Zotero, etc.
- Blogs: e.g. Livejournal, Sett, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- Document Sharing Platforms: e.g. Docdroid, Scribd, etc.
Visit the plugin website to learn more about this powerful plugin: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (in order to get useful information about your content marketing efforts), we have written a detailed article where we explore a number of social media measurement tools and technologies that you may want to check out. To learn more, visit this page:
The above are just some examples of the many plugins that WordPress makes available for automating and syndicating the distribution of your content online.
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 Sharing Stage – Summary
Once you have your website and plugins expertly configured and set up, all you then have to do to begin driving traffic is publish fresh content on a consistent basis.
We have created an entire email course designed to help you come up with unlimited content ideas for your website:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize as much of the process as you can. This step is explained in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part 4
To read the rest of this article series, click on the link below:
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"I love the way your email series "Infinite Web Content Creation Training Series" is documented and presented. It is very absorbing and captivating. The links and tutorials are interesting and educational. This has motivated me to rewrite my content following the concepts I am learning from the email series." - Mani Raju, www.fortuneinewaste.com
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