Welcome to Part Four of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to grow your business online automatically using the WordPress CMS.
So far, we have covered the following in this series:
In Part 1, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to automatically start generating more web traffic is add great content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we discuss the setup phase of the blueprint. We explain the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part Three, we looked at configuring WordPress.
In this step, we configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that can affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part Three we show you how to configure hosting settings, internal settings, and external settings that can affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In Part Four, we will show you how to set up various plugins that can bring visitors automatically to your website or blog as you begin to post new content.
Why Automate The Traffic-Getting Process?
Depending on which marketing expert you listen to, you could find yourself trying to spend a couple of hours or more per day posting content on social media in addition to running your business, creating content and managing your online presence.
Many small business owners lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online marketing experts prescribe. If you spend all of your time checking Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter in addition to researching and writing articles for your website or blog, how will you get anything in your business done?
(Small businesses spend most of their time keeping their businesses up and running. Image source: NFIB)
Small businesses spend most of their time keeping their businesses up and running. On top of this, there’s sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to stay competitive and make sales 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 at least six hours per week on social media (the other half 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 figures would most likely be 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 was their most time-consuming online activity.
(Businesses spend more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Source: VerticalResponse.com)
As small businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time promoting and marketing 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 marketing budget, resources, and time and many different areas to focus on have to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
One other thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time marketing and promoting your business on a number of social media sites, you are investing all of your efforts into virtual real estate that you don’t control. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or StumbleUpon. These companies often will make decisions that impact your business without prior warning. Why invest so much time and effort building content on someone else’s asset? With WordPress, you can have complete control of your own real estate and publish your content automatically to other online properties.
Automating processes to leverage time and increase productivity is not new. Businesses have been doing it since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the increasing availability of many new channels for promoting and marketing a business creates a number of dilemmas for business owners, especially for those with limited time, resources, and budget. For example:
- Which marketing channels should you invest more of your budget, efforts, and your time on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) while neglecting your own domain?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to market and promote 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 strategy for automating the web traffic generation process with WordPress.
With this formula, you will be able to:
- Save time creating content for your website and other marketing channels (e.g. social media),
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary online marketing costs,
- Determine which marketing channels you should invest more budget, efforts, and your time 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 tools, techniques, websites, and anything that violates the policies and terms of service of services like Facebook, Pinterest, Google, etc..
(Automating your web traffic doesn’t have to involve using black hat techniques!)
The focus of this article is not to manipulate online services or flaunt their terms of service, but to show you how to be smart with your resources and automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and efforts, and get additional exposure online from websites 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 businesses lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online 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 channels can be very time-consuming!)
Why not use this time-saving approach 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:
- Automatically distribute content to social media services and bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute content (and comments) to other blogs and web properties using RSS
- Automatically import content (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 shown in Part Two. Then, expertly configure your site settings as described in Part Three. Once all of this is in place, you then automate your content distribution using 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 System – Traffic-Getting Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at some examples of WordPress plugins that can help to:
- Distribute content automatically to social sites and social bookmarking sites
- Post comments automatically to other blogs
- Syndicate content automatically via RSS to other blogs
Jetpack
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, 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 many great functions.
After installing Jetpack, you will need to 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)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, LinkedIn, GooglePlus, and more …
(Distribute your posts to several social media networks.)
After configuring all account and plugin settings, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize options show in your Publish area.)
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.)
The Jetpack plugin provides you with a hands-free, automated way to create more exposure for your content online on social media websites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
WordPress has a native commenting function that allows your blog readers to interact with your web site, post new comments, reply to existing comments and engage with your content.
You can expand the WordPress default commenting feature using a third-party plugin like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrates with social media, helping to share and spread your content around.
For example, using a plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version) can help make your site more attractive to commenters by offering them a wider choice of backlinks if they like, plus1, or tweet your post. This plugin will visit the website or blog of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their most recent blog posts, which they can include below their comment when they click submit.
(CommentLuv can encourage a greater level of commenting and create more user engagement on your web site.)
Visit this website to learn more about the benefits of using this plugin:
Social Link Machine
(Social Link Machine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social LinkMachine is a plugin that lets you automatically syndicate and drip-feed your content to over 30 traffic-generating sites, build diverse anchor text backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and second-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social Link Machine – syndicate content to many social platforms)
With Social Link Machine installed, you can automatically syndicate your content to dozens of authority sites, like:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Bitly, Linkagogo, Instapaper, Stumbleupon, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blogger, Sett, Tumblr, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, Xing, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- PDF Sharing: e.g. Issuu, Scribd, etc.
To learn more about this handy plugin, visit the plugin site: SocialLinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (in order to get actionable information about your content distribution efforts), we have written a comprehensive article listing several social media measurement tools that are worth knowing about. For more details, go here:
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 Automation System: Content Distribution Phase – Summary
Once your website and plugins have been configured and set up, all you need to do to automatically attract traffic is add content regularly.
We have created a complete email email-based training course designed to help you come up with limitless content for your web site:
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the process. This step is explained in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section 4
To keep reading this article, click on the link below:
***
"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
***