Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to create an automated traffic generating machine using WordPress.
So far, we have covered the following in this article series:
In Part One, we explained 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 add web content regularly to automatically begin bringing new web traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. 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 site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In Part Three, we look at important configuration decisions.
Here, we configure all the settings that affect your site’s traffic-getting ability …
(In Part Three we show you how to configure all the settings (hosting, WordPress and external) that can affect your website’s traffic-getting ability)
In this article, we will discuss ways to automate your traffic with different plugins.
Why Automating The Traffic-Getting Process Makes Sense
Depending on which expert you talk to, you could end up spending 1-2 hours per day (or more) promoting your business on social media in addition to running your business, creating content and managing your online presence.
Most business owners simply lack the time, human resources and budget to run a full-time marketing and content creation department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts advise. If you are spending half your day checking LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook in addition to planning and writing articles for your website or blog, how does anything else in your business get done?
(Keeping their business up and running is how most small businesses spend their time. Infographic source: NFIB)
Many business owners spend most of their time simply 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.
Research conducted in 2012 by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- Almost half of all small businesses surveyed spent six or more hours per week on social media (most of the other businesses surveyed that used social media spent even more time – between 6 and 21+ hours per week). This use of social media was a 66% increase from the previous year, so if the same survey was conducted today, the figures would probably be even 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 consumed the most time online.
(Small businesses spend more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Source: VerticalResponse.com)
As businesses spend more 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 resources, time, and budget and many business areas to focus on need to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
One other thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time marketing and promoting your business on various social 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 and will make decisions that affect your business without first consulting you. Why invest so much effort and time building content on rented real estate? With a self-hosted WordPress website, you can have complete control of your own virtual real estate and publish your content automatically to other sites.
Investing in automation to save 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 Information Age, however, the increasing 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 time, resources, and budgets. For example:
- Which of these marketing channels should you focus more budget, time, and efforts on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that you ultimately have little to no control over (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.) while ignoring the benefits of building content on your own website?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to include in your marketing strategy?
The Benefits Of Automating The Traffic Generation With WordPress
What I’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective method that lets you automate your web traffic generation process with WordPress.
With this strategy, 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 channels you should focus more of your time, budget, and 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 solutions, websites, methods, and anything designed to manipulate or violate the terms of service and policies of companies like Pinterest, Facebook, Google.
(Web traffic automation does not require using black hat techniques!)
What we are focusing in this series of articles is not to manipulate web 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 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 small business owners lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that most experts advise. What you want to do, then, is to be strategic and work smart within your limitations.
So, instead of posting content to different marketing channels one by one, which can be very time-consuming …
(Posting content to different services one by one is very time-consuming!)
Why not use this 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 your content distribution to all other channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social channels and 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 get all this done?
Simple … first, set up your WordPress website as explained in Part Two. Then, get it all configured as explained in Part Three. After all this is in place, you can then connect all of the dots using plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at some examples of plugins that can help to:
- Syndicate content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking sites
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Syndicate content via RSS to other web properties
Jetpack by WordPress.com
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and more as soon as you publish your content using a 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 set up in Part 3 …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Jetpack – Publicize feature)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and more …
(Share your posts on several social sites.)
After configuring all plugin and account settings, your content is ready for distribution.
Publicize adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize details displays in your publishing section.)
Now, whenever you publish new content, it will automatically get shared online to all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as you publish, your posts are automatically distributed online.)
Visit this site to learn more about the benefits of this plugin: Jetpack
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
WordPress has a native commenting function that allows your blog readers to engage with your web site, post new comments, reply to existing comments and engage with your content.
You can enhance the WordPress default commenting feature using a 3rd-party plugin that integrates with social media, helping to share and spread them around.
For example, a plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version) can help make your site more attractive to commenters by offering them a choice of backlinks if they plus1, like, or tweet your post. This plugin will visit the comment author’s website while they enter their comment and retrieve their last blog posts, which can be included at the bottom of their comment when they click submit.
(CommentLuv can encourage a greater level of commenting and improve user engagement on your website.)
To learn more about using this powerful plugin, visit the plugin website:
Social LinkMachine
(Social Link Machine – Content distribution plugin for WordPress)
Social LinkMachine is a plugin for WordPress that allows you to drip-feed your content, build backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and create social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – drip-feed content automatically to dozens of online platforms)
With Social Link Machine installed, you can automatically syndicate your content to many online platforms, like:
- Social Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Delicious, Diigo, Plurk, Scoop.it, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blog.com, Rebel Mouse, Tribe, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- PDF Sharing Platforms: e.g. Docdroid, Scribd, etc.
To learn more about the benefits of using this plugin, visit the plugin site: SocialLinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (in order to get actionable information about your content marketing campaigns), or if you want to learn more about social media measurement tools and technologies that are worth knowing about, refer to this article:
The above are just a few 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 Automation System: Content Distribution Phase – Summary
Once your site and plugins have been configured and set up, all you need to do then to drive web traffic is add great content consistently.
We have created a complete email email-based training course aimed at helping you come up with unlimited content ideas for posting to your website or blog:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the web-traffic generation process. This step is covered in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part Four
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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