Welcome to Part 4 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to drive traffic automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS.
So far, here is what we have covered in this article series:
In Part 1 of this article series, we provide an overview of the traffic automation process, and explain why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to automatically begin bringing new web traffic is post web content regularly!)
In Part 2, we look at the setup phase. We help you understand the best way to get started 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 existing site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In Part Three, we discuss configuring WordPress.
Here, we configure all the settings (hosting, WordPress and external) that can affect your site’s traffic-getting ability …
(In Part Three we show you how to configure all the settings (hosting, internal and external) that can affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In this step, we explain how to set up various WordPress plugins that can help bring new visitors automatically to your website or blog just by adding fresh content.
Why It Makes Sense To Automate The Traffic Generation Process
Depending on which online marketing expert you listen to, you could end up investing an hour or more every day posting content on social media, as well as running your business, creating content and managing your web presence.
Many businesses simply lack the time, resources and financial means to employ the services of a full-time marketing department and engage in the kind of content marketing that many marketing experts recommend doing. If you spent all of your time posting updates on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn in addition to planning and writing articles for your website or blog, how would anything in your business get done?
(Keeping their business up and running is how most small businesses spend their working hours. Source: NFIB)
Small businesses spend most of their working hours keeping their businesses up and running. In addition to running a business, there’s sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to stay competitive and grow in order to survive.
Research done in 2012 by email and social media marketing company Vertical Response found that:
- Almost half of all businesses surveyed spent 6 or more hours per week on social media (the rest 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 done today, the figures would probably be even higher.
- More than half of all small 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 are spending more time each year marketing and promoting themselves online. Infographic source: VerticalResponse.com)
As businesses spend more time on online marketing in order to compete and survive, this puts more and more of a squeeze on businesses to prioritize their time on other equally vital areas …
(Businesses with limited marketing budget, resources, and time and many business areas to focus on have to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
One other important 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 don’t control. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest. These sites can and will make decisions that can significantly impact your business without consulting you. Why invest so much time and effort building content on rented real estate? With WordPress, you can have complete control of your own real estate and publish your content automatically to other sites.
Automating business systems and processes to save time and increase productivity is nothing new. Businesses have been doing it since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the availability of so many new channels for marketing and promoting a business creates a number of dilemmas for business owners and business managers, especially for those with limited budgets, time, and resources. For example:
- Which of these marketing channels do you focus more of your efforts, time, and budget 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 ignoring the benefits of building content on your own domain?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to include in your marketing strategy?
The Benefits Of Automating Your Traffic Generation Process With WordPress
What we’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula that allows you to automate your traffic generation process with WordPress.
With this method, 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 channels,
- Determine which marketing channels you should invest more of your efforts, time, and your budget on,
- Invest most of your time building your own asset instead of someone else’s and still benefit from other people’s marketing channels.
Many automated 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 you to avoid using black hat software, websites, techniques, and anything that violates the terms of service and policies of services like Facebook, Google, YouTube, etc..
(Web traffic automation does not have to involve the use of black hat techniques!)
The purpose of this article series is to show you how to automate your content distribution in order to leverage your time and marketing efforts, and get additional exposure online from websites that your target audience frequents.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
As we’ve just seen in the previous section, many business owners lack the time, resources and financial means to engage in the kind of content marketing that many experts recommend doing. What you want to do, then, is be strategic with your limited resources, time, and budget.
So, instead of posting content to marketing channels individually, which can be extremely time-consuming …
(Posting content to different services one at a time is very time-consuming!)
Why not use a smarter, time-saving approach like this 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 marketing channels.
You can:
- Distribute content automatically to social sites and social bookmarking sites,
- Automatically distribute content (and comments) 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 do all of this?
Simple … first, set up your site as shown in Part 2. Then, get everything configured as described in Part Three. After all this is in place, you then automate your content distribution with plugins.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Traffic Generation Plugins
Let’s take a look now at some traffic-generation WordPress plugins that can be used to:
- Distribute content to social sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Syndicate content to other blogs via RSS feeds
Jetpack Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, GooglePlus, LinkedIn and more as soon as you publish your content using a WordPress plugin like JetPack.
Download URL: https://jetpack.com/
Jetpack is a free WordPress plugin with many 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 plugin – Publicize)
Once this section is configured, you will be able to automatically share your posts on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and more …
(Share your content on various social networks.)
After all plugin and account settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize settings displayed in the post publishing box.)
Now, as soon as you publish new content, it will automatically get shared online to all of the accounts you have set up …
(As soon as new posts are published, they will be automatically distributed online.)
Jetpack provides you with a hands-free way to get more exposure for your content online on social media websites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The native WordPress commenting feature allows your blog readers to engage with your website or blog, post new comments, reply to existing comments and engage with your content.
You can enhance the WordPress built-in commenting feature with third-party plugins like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrate with social media, helping to share and spread them around.
For example, with a plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version), you can create more user engagement on your web site. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social rewards like search-indexable backlinks, using keywords in the username, social enticements for content-sharing, and adding twitter handles to comments. This plugin will visit the comment author’s website or blog while they enter their comment and retrieve their most recent blog posts, which can be included with their comment after clicking submit.
(CommentLuv Premium version can encourage a greater level of commenting and improve user engagement on your website or blog.)
Visit this website for more information about the benefits of using this plugin:
Social Link Machine
(Social LinkMachine – Set-and-forget content distribution plugin)
Social Link Machine is a set-and-forget plugin for WordPress that allows you to automatically syndicate your content to dozens of traffic-generating websites, build backlinks, include relevant YouTube videos and images, and create 2nd-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – syndicate and drip-feed your content automatically to over 30 online websites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically drip-feed content to many online sites, including:
- Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Deviantart, Diigo, Kippt, Stumbleupon, etc.
- Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blogger, Rebel Mouse, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Google Plus, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing Platforms: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- PDF Sharing: e.g. Issuu, Sendspace, etc.
Visit this website to learn more about using this plugin: SocialLinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media monitoring (in order to get actionable information about your content marketing campaigns), we have written a comprehensive article where we explore over 30 social media measurement tools that are worth checking out and knowing about. Go here to learn more:
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: Automated Content Syndication Process – Summary
Once your website and plugins have been expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do is post great content consistently to generate more web traffic.
If you need endless content ideas for your website or blog, we recommend subscribing to our FREE email training course on content marketing here:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize the web-traffic generation process. This step is explained in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Part 4
To read more, click here:
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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