Welcome to Part 4 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we explain how to turn a site into an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
So far, we have covered the following in this article series:
In Part 1, we explain why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to begin bringing new web traffic is post content regularly!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase of this blueprint. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your 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 the configuration phase.
In this step, we configure all the settings (hosting, internal and external) that can affect your website’s ability to generate traffic automatically …
(In Part 3 we explain how to configure all the settings (hosting, WordPress and external) that can affect your site’s ability to generate traffic automatically)
In Part 4, we will show you how to set up various WordPress plugins that can bring web traffic automatically to your website or blog.
Why It Makes Sense To Automate The Traffic Generation
Depending on which marketing expert you talk to, you could find yourself trying to spend a couple of hours every day (or more) posting content on social media, as well as trying to run your business, creating content and managing your web presence.
Most small businesses lack the time, 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 are prescribing. If you spent all of your time checking Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter in addition to researching and writing articles for your website or blog, how could you get anything in your business done?
(Small businesses spend most of their working hours keeping their businesses up and running. Infographic: National Federation Of Independent Businesses)
Many business owners spend most of their time simply keeping their businesses up and running. On top of this, there’s also sales and marketing. After all, businesses need to stay 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 small businesses surveyed spent 6 or more hours per week on social media (the other half of businesses surveyed using 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 research was done 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 consumed the most time online.
(Small businesses spend more time every year marketing and promoting themselves online. Image source: VerticalResponse)
As small businesses spend more time on online marketing as a matter of business survival and competition, this puts more and more of a squeeze on businesses to focus their time on other equally important areas …
(Businesses with limited resources, marketing budgets, and time and many areas to focus on need to plan their marketing strategy very carefully.)
One other important thing to keep in mind is that, in addition to spending time social media sites, all of your efforts are going into virtual real estate that you have no control over. You don’t own Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube. These sites often will make decisions that can dramatically affect your business without consulting you. Why invest so much time and effort building content on rented real estate? With WordPress, you can control your own real estate and distribute your content automatically to other websites.
Investing in automation to save time and increase productivity is not new. Businesses of all sizes have been doing it ever since the dawn of the Industrial Age. In the Digital Age, however, the exponential growth marketing channels creates a number of dilemmas for business owners and business managers, especially for those with limited resources, time, and budget. For example:
- Which channels should you invest more of your efforts, time, and your budget on?
- Should you invest so much time and effort building a web presence on other people’s sites (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc.) while neglecting your own website?
- Do you create new content for every channel you plan to promote and market 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 that allows you to automate the traffic generation 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 online marketing channels,
- Determine which channels you should focus more of your budget, efforts, and your time on,
- Invest most of your efforts building your own asset 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 recommend staying away from all black hat websites, strategies, tools, and anything designed to “game” or violate the policies and terms of service of sites like Pinterest, Facebook, Google.
(Automating your web traffic doesn’t have to involve using black hat methods!)
What we are focusing in this article series is not to game web services or flaunt their terms of service, but to show you how to automate your content distribution so you can 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
We’ve just seen in the previous section that most small business owners lack the time, resources and budget to engage in the kind of content marketing that many experts recommend doing. What you want to do, then, is work smart within your limited time, resources, and budget.
So, instead of using this approach …
(Posting content to different channels can be 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 content once, and automate your content distribution to all other marketing channels.
You can:
- Automatically distribute content to social media sites 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 WordPress website as described in Part Two. Then, get it all configured as shown in Part Three. After all this is in place, you can then automate your content distribution with plugins such as the ones listed in the following section.
The video below shows you how everything works once your WordPress site has been expertly configured …
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Traffic Generation Plugins
Let’s take a look now at a number of traffic-generation plugins that can:
- Syndicate content to social sites and social bookmarking websites
- Distribute comments automatically to other blogs
- Post content automatically to other online properties via RSS
Jetpack WordPress Plugin
You can get your posts automatically distributed to sites like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, 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 loads of great features.
After installing Jetpack, you will need to connect the plugin to the WordPress.com account set up in Part 3 …
(Make sure the Jetpack plugin is connected to your WordPress.com account)
Next, activate the Publicize feature …
(Activate the Publicize feature on Jetpack)
Configure this section to share your posts on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, LinkedIn, GooglePlus, and more …
(Share your content on various social media sites.)
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 details show in the publishing section.)
Now, as soon as you publish new content, it will automatically be shared online to every account you have set up …
(As soon as new content is published, it is automatically syndicated online.)
Jetpack provides you with a hands-free way to create more exposure for your content online on social sites.
CommentLuv
(CommentLuv)
WordPress has a native commenting system that lets your blog readers interact with your website, post new comments, reply to existing comments and participate in discussions.
You can expand the WordPress native commenting feature with a third-party plugin like Disqus, IntenseDebate, LiveFyre, or CommentLuv that integrates with social media, helping to share and spread them around.
For example, with a plugin like CommentLuv (Premium version), you can make your blog more attractive to commenters by offering them a choice of backlinks if they plus1, tweet, or like your content. This plugin will visit the website of the comment author while they are entering their comment and retrieve their last blog posts, which they can include at the bottom of their comment after clicking the submit button.
(CommentLuv Premium version can attract more comments and create more user engagement on your site.)
To learn more about this plugin, go here:
SocialLinkMachine
(SocialLinkMachine – Content distribution plugin)
SocialLinkMachine is a WordPress plugin that lets you syndicate and drip-feed content to over 30 traffic-generating sites, build backlinks, include relevant YouTube videos and images, and social signals on auto-pilot …
(SocialLinkMachine – drip-feed your content automatically to many social sites)
With Social LinkMachine installed, you can automatically syndicate and drip-feed content to over 30 traffic-generating websites, such as:
- Bookmarking Platforms: e.g. Deviantart, Folkd, Instapaper, Scoop.it, etc.
- Web 2.0 Blogging Platforms: e.g. Blog.com, Overblog, WordPress.com, etc.
- Social Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- Image Sharing: e.g. Pinterest, etc.
- PDF Sharing Platforms: e.g. Issuu, Gett, etc.
For more information about the benefits of this plugin, visit this website: Social LinkMachine
Also, if you would like to know more about setting up social media tracking (so you can get actionable information about your content marketing efforts), we have written a comprehensive article on social media monitoring tools and technologies that you may want to check out. Go here to learn more about this:
The above are just some 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 System: Automated Content Distribution Process – Summary
Once you have your website or blog and plugins configured and fully set up, all you then need to do to begin attracting more web traffic is publish content on a consistent basis.
If you need help coming up with unlimited ideas for content that you can post on your web site, we recommend subscribing to our FREE email training series on content marketing here:
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to optimize as much of the process as you can. This step is explained in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Part Four
To read more, click here:
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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