Welcome to Part 4 of our WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS platform.
So far, here is what we have covered in this article series:
In Part One, we explain why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to automatically begin bringing web traffic is add great content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we focused on critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing site was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In Part Three, we look at configuring the system.
In this step, we configure all the settings that affect your website’s traffic-getting ability …
(In Part Three you learn how to configure all the settings (hosting, WordPress and external) that can affect your site’s traffic-getting ability)
In this step, we will look at ways to automate the traffic-generation process with WordPress plugins.
Why Automating The Traffic Generation Makes Sense
Depending on which marketing expert you get your advice from, you could find yourself trying to spend a couple of hours every day (or more) promoting your business on social media in addition to managing your business, your content and your online presence.
Many small 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 are spending half your day posting updates on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn in addition to writing articles for your blog or website, how will you get anything else in your business done?
(Keeping their business running is how most small businesses spend their working hours. Infographic source: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Small businesses spend most of their working hours trying to keep their businesses up and running. In addition to running a business, there’s also sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to remain competitive and make sales in order to survive.
Marketing research conducted by VerticalResponse – an email and social media marketing company, found that:
- 43% of all businesses surveyed spent 6 or more hours per week on social media (the other half of businesses surveyed that used social media 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 conducted today, the numbers would probably be 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 was the activity that consumed the most time online for all businesses surveyed.
(Businesses spend more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Source: VerticalResponse)
As small businesses spend increasingly larger amounts of time promoting and marketing themselves online in order to compete and survive, this leaves less time for under-resourced businesses to focus on other areas …
(Businesses with limited marketing budgets, resources, and time and many business areas to focus on need to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
One other important thing to consider is that, in addition to spending time 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 StumbleUpon. These sites 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 WordPress (self-hosted), you can have complete control of your own real estate and post your content automatically to other websites.
Investing in business automation to leverage time is not new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the exponential growth channels for promoting and marketing a business online creates a number of dilemmas for business owners, especially for those with limited marketing budget, time, and resources. For example:
- Which marketing channels should you focus more efforts, time, and your budget on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building assets on sites that you do not control (e.g. YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.) while neglecting 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 I’d like to show you now, is a free, simple, and effective formula that allows you to automate the traffic-getting process with WordPress.
With this formula, you will be able to:
- Save time creating web content and social media,
- Save money on content creation and unnecessary web marketing channels,
- Determine which marketing channels you should invest more of your time, efforts, and budget 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 recommend avoiding black hat websites, solutions, strategies, and anything designed to manipulate or violate the policies and terms of service of sites like Facebook, Pinterest, Google, etc..
(Automating your web traffic does not need to involve using black hat methods!)
The purpose of this article is to show you how to be smart with your resources and automate your content distribution in order to leverage your time and efforts, and increase your exposure online to websites used by your target audience.
An Automated Content Distribution, Traffic And Lead Generation, And Sales & Marketing System
We’ve just seen in the previous section how most small businesses lack the time, human resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many online experts recommend. What you want to do, then, is work smart within your limited resources.
So, instead of doing this …
(Posting content to different services one by one can be extremely time-consuming!)
Why not choose 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 one-time, and automate your content distribution to all other channels.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social media services 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 do all of this?
Simple … first, set up your site as explained in Part Two. Then, expertly configure your site settings as shown in Part 3. After all this is in place, you 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 Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Plugins
Let’s take a quick look at a number of traffic-generating plugins that can:
- Post content automatically to social media sites and social bookmarking accounts
- Syndicate comments automatically to other blogs
- Distribute content automatically via RSS feeds to other sites
Jetpack WordPress Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Twitter, 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 useful functions.
After Jetpack has been installed, 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 the Publicize feature …
(Jetpack plugin – Publicize)
You can share your posts on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Google+, and more …
(Share your posts automatically on various social sites.)
After all of the account and plugin settings have been configured, your content is ready for distribution.
The Publicize feature adds a new section to your Publish box …
(Publicize account options show in the Publish area.)
Now, whenever you publish new content, it will automatically get shared on every account you have set up …
(As soon as content is published, it will be automatically shared online.)
Go here to learn more about using this plugin: Jetpack Plugin
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
The WordPress native commenting feature lets your blog readers interact with your website, post new comments, reply to other users and participate in discussions.
You can expand the WordPress default commenting feature with third-party commenting plugins that integrate your comments with social media, helping to share and spread your content around.
For example, with a WordPress plugin like CommentLuv (Pro version), you can improve user engagement on your website. The plugin encourages readers to comment using SEO and social reward features like ability to use keywords in the user name, adding twitter handles to comments, social enticements for sharing content, and backlinks. This plugin will visit the website of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve their last blog posts, which can be included with their comment when they click the submit button.
(CommentLuv can help attract more comments and create more user engagement on your web site.)
To learn more about this powerful plugin, go here:
SocialLinkMachine
(Social Link Machine – WordPress content distribution plugin)
Social Link Machine is a set-and-forget plugin for WordPress that allows you to syndicate and drip-feed content, build backlinks, include relevant videos and images, and create 2nd-tier links and social signals on auto-pilot …
(Social LinkMachine – syndicate content automatically to over 30 authority platforms)
With Social Link Machine installed, you can automatically syndicate your content to dozens of social websites, like:
- Social Bookmarking Sites: e.g. Bitly, Linkagogo, Instapaper, Scoop.it, etc.
- Blogs: e.g. Blogger, Overblog, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Google Plus, YouTube, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Flickr, etc.
- Document Sharing: e.g. Docdroid, Scribd, etc.
Visit the plugin site to learn more about this 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 distribution campaigns), we have created a comprehensive article listing several social media tracking tools that are worth knowing about. Go here to learn more:
The above are just a few examples of the many plugins that WordPress makes available for automating 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 System: Content Syndication Process – Summary
Once your website and plugins have been expertly configured and set up, all you have to do then to attract more web traffic is publish fresh content on a consistent basis.
We have created a complete email series designed to help you come up with endless content for your website or blog:
Once you have expertly 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 4
To keep reading about this topic, click here:
***
"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com
***