Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive traffic automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this article series, we explained 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 is add web content consistently to automatically generate more traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase of this process. 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 website, and what to do if your existing site was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we look at the configuration phase of this process. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site so you can automatically begin attracting new visitors whenever you publish fresh content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With competition becoming increasingly more difficult businesses are researching any and every opportunity they can to improve their performance and results online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage over the competition. With an expertly configured website, you have a significant competitive advantage from the very beginning.
The Difference Is In The Configuration Process
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here’s a simple way to explain the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is more labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
Let me illustrate this with a joke.
A Semi-True Story …
Everything is moving along in the gizmo assembly line when the machines suddenly stops.
As no one can figure out what went wrong, the floor manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert walks straight towards the control box. After staring at the wiring diagrams for about 2 minutes, the expert then produces a tiny hammer from his shirt pocket and makes a single tap about one inch from the left side of the control unit.
Immediately, all the machinery comes back to life.
The manager is greatly overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager receives a request of payment for services for the amount of $5,000.
Feeling angry, the manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for less than five minutes work, he then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the equipment stopped functioning and no one in the factory floor had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to ask to be compensated fairly for years spent developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress web site configured so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
While experts often make complex solutions look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than just installing a website and configuring a few settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services need to be set up to get desired results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured to make sure things function as expected, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite involved and time-consuming. This is because it’s not as easy as installing a solution, clicking a couple of buttons, or configuring some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of many parts including your server, your website or blog, and a number of external sites and online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved.
Configuring The Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is configuring settings in your web-hosting account specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic you can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like integrating server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to configure various third-party sites.
Integration With External Accounts
The basic concept of choosing external sites is that all content is posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it then gets distributed automatically to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external services into your traffic system, content pointing back to your website is automatically posted to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social sites, even to users of the platform itself. Your business will benefit from increased exposure online, helping your business tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some sites will need to be set up before configuring your settings to help speed up the configuration process and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, here are just some of the accounts you will need to have set up before configuring your site’s settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with important information, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your Google Search Console account and site data have been set up, your details can be used to integrate and automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrals, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account and site details, traffic tracking data can be easily integrated with WordPress using a Google Analytics plugin used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account has been set up, the account details can be used to automate traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to build a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your automated traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social accounts before you can integrate these with your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have profiles set up with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can You can syndicate your content to many social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(You can syndicate your content to loads of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own RebelMouse social feed.
There are many different platforms you can add to your own web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As stated below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have specifically configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, only one service is available …
(WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically!)
Download A Comprehensive List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site!
Click the link below to download a comprehensive list of reliable and authoritative ping services for your WordPress site or blog:
Download A List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site
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Note: If you need help setting up the list of ping services on your site, we recommend using a professional web services provider. You can find professional WordPress service providers in our WordPress Services Directory.
Reading Settings
This section affects how your content gets seen by readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to read the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Generally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to notify the update services list when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion Settings
Although this section is mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to sites linked to from your articles, and to allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks). This can work for you, but it can also drive bad traffic in the form of SPAM comments …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks Screen)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your site’s permalinks …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks here: Changing WordPress Permalinks
Configuring Settings – Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is immune from a cyberattack.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to hackers and botnets.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your site more search engine friendly …
(SEO plugins help increase traffic by improving your site’s ability to rank better in search engines)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines to find and index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with others online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you provide content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your website easily using free or inexpensive plugins)
You can easily add social sharing features to your website with WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins let you specify which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which users can unlock by sharing your page.
Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) can be configured for improved traffic results)
With many themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as clicking a few buttons and enabling the feature …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure For Better Traffic
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do business online, you need to ensure that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
Post Tags And Categories
Post tags & categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your website.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your web pages.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and categories should be set up during the Website Planning Process.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal results.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A visitor site map that displays all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover your web content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although Google can index your site just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Your 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching for your website enter the wrong URL or click on a dead hyperlink, they are presented with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 Not Found page) …
(A 404 Not Found page)
A 404 Not Found error page can redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your site expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then to automatically start generating new web traffic is post content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some web developers months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is addressed in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively with a WordPress-powered website and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
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