Welcome to Part 4 of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to create an automated traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS.
So far, we have covered the following in this article series:
In Part 1, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to automatically begin attracting new traffic is post content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we focused on 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 existing site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part 3, we look at the configuration phase.
Here, we configure all the settings (hosting, WordPress and external) that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part Three you will configure hosting settings, WordPress settings, and external settings that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In this section, we look at ways to automate your traffic using various WordPress plugins.
Why You Should Automate The Traffic Generation Process
Depending on who you talk to, you could end up spending an hour or two (or more) every day posting content on social media, as well as trying to manage your business, your content and your online presence.
Many small businesses simply lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts prescribe. If you spent half a day posting updates on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter in addition to writing articles for your blog or website, how could you get anything in your business done?
(Keeping their business up and running is how most small business owners spend their time. Infographic: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many businesses spend most of their time 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 in 2012 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 spent even more time – between 6 and 21+ hours per week). This was a 66% increase from the previous year, so if the same survey was conducted today, the numbers would most likely be even higher.
- More than half of all businesses surveyed spent 1-3 hours or more creating a blog post.
- Finding and posting content for social media was the activity that consumed the most time online for all businesses surveyed.
(Businesses are spending more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic: VerticalResponse)
As businesses spend more time promoting and marketing themselves online as a matter of business survival and competition, this puts more and more pressure on businesses to prioritize their time on other equally important areas …
(Businesses with limited marketing budgets, resources, and time and many different business areas to focus on require careful planning of their marketing strategy.)
One other thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time 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 StumbleUpon. These companies can and will make decisions that impact your business without consulting you. Why invest so much effort and time building a business on someone else’s asset? With a self-hosted WordPress website, you can have complete control of your own virtual real estate and distribute your content automatically to other sites.
Investing in business automation to leverage time is not new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it ever since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Information Age, however, the increased availability of hundreds of new channels for promoting and marketing a business online creates a number of dilemmas for business owners, especially for those with limited budget, time, and resources. For example:
- Which marketing channels do you focus more of your budget, efforts, and time on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that you do not control (e.g. YouTube, LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc.) while neglecting 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 Web Traffic Generation With WordPress
What we’d like to share with you now, is a free, simple, and effective strategy that lets you automate your traffic generation with WordPress.
With this formula, 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 invest more time, budget, and efforts on,
- Invest most of your time 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 strongly urge that you stay away from all black hat sites, methods, tools, and anything designed to flaunt or violate the policies and terms of service of companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not need to involve using black hat methods!)
What we are focusing in this article series is to show you how to automate your content distribution so you can leverage your time and efforts, and increase your exposure online to 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, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many experts recommend. What you want to do, then, is to be strategic and work smart within your limited resources, budget, and time.
So, instead of choosing this approach, which is very time-consuming …
(Posting content to individual marketing channels is extremely time-consuming!)
Why not choose this one 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 channels.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social sites and social 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 get all this done?
Simple … first, set up your website or blog as described in Part 2. Then, configure it as described in Part 3. Once all of this is in place, you can then connect all of the dots with plugins like the ones shown below.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Plugins
Let’s take a brief look at some examples of plugins that can be used to:
- Post content automatically to social sites and social bookmarking sites
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Syndicate content automatically via RSS to other online properties
Jetpack WordPress Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, GooglePlus, 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 many great functions.
After installing Jetpack, you will need to connect the plugin to your WordPress.com account (set up in Part 3.) …
(Connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate a feature called Publicize …
(Jetpack plugin – Publicize feature)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, GooglePlus, LinkedIn, and more …
(Share your content on several social media accounts.)
After all of the settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account options displayed in your Publish section.)
Now, as soon as you publish new content, it will automatically get shared online to every account you have set up …
(As soon as new posts are published, they will be automatically syndicated online.)
To learn more about the benefits of this powerful plugin, go here: Jetpack
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
WordPress has a native commenting feature that lets your blog readers engage with your website, post new comments, reply to existing comments and engage with your content.
You can expand the WordPress built-in commenting feature using a 3rd-party plugin like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrates your comments with social media, helping to share and spread your content around.
For example, a plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version) can help make your site more attractive to commenters by offering them a choice of backlinks if they +1, like, or tweet your post. This plugin will visit the comment author’s site while they are entering their comment and retrieve their most recent blog posts, which they can include with their comment when they click submit.
(CommentLuv Pro version can attract more comments and improve user engagement on your website.)
To learn more about this WordPress plugin, go here:
Social LinkMachine
(SocialLinkMachine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
SocialLinkMachine is a WordPress plugin that lets you automatically syndicate content to many traffic-generating websites, build diverse anchor text backlinks, include relevant images and videos, and create social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – drip-feed your content automatically to dozens of online sites)
With SocialLinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate and drip-feed your content to over 30 online websites, like:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Delicious, Diigo, Plurk, Zotero, etc.
- Blogs: e.g. Blogger, Overblog, Tumblr, etc.
- Social Media Platforms: Facebook, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- Document Sharing Platforms: e.g. Docdroid, Scribd, etc.
For more information about this WordPress plugin, go here: SocialLinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (so you can get actionable information about your content marketing campaigns), we have written a detailed article on social media measurement tools that will help you manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives. Go here to learn more:
The above are just a few 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 Blueprint: Automated Content Distribution Phase – Summary
Once your website and plugins have been expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do is publish fresh content on a consistent basis to begin bringing new web traffic organically.
We have created a complete email training series aimed at helping you come up with endless content ideas for your website:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the process. This step is explained in the next article in the WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Part Four
To keep reading about this topic, click on the link below:
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"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie
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