Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new visitors automatically to your site using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is add new content consistently to automatically bring more traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase of this process. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured in order to automatically get new visitors when you add new content to your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive on a global scale and are looking for every advantage they believe will increase their competitiveness online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge competitive advantage. For businesses, an expertly configured website means having an immediate competitive advantage from the very beginning.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here is a simple way to explain the main difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing story.
Knowing Where To Tap
Everything is running smoothly in the widget factory when things grind to a sudden halt.
No one can figure out what’s wrong and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert goes directly to the main control box. After staring silently at the schematics for 2 minutes or less, the expert then takes out a tiny hammer from his utility belt and makes a gentle tap near the left side of the control unit.
Immediately, the assembly line starts working as before.
The floor manager is greatly relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager receives a request for payment of services rendered totalling $5,000.
Bewildered to the point of feeling outrage, the manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged such a ludicrous fee for less than 5 minutes work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the factory stand to lose when the machines stopped functioning and no one in the business had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for having spent years developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to assess and avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social media and dozens of other online properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although many experts often make complicated situations and problems look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring settings for the client. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party accounts you need to set up to get desired outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure in order to ensure that things function as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved. It’s not just about installing a solution, clicking on a button or two, or tweaking some settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of many components such as your web hosting server, your website or blog, and a number of third-party sites and online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we create a simple diagram showing all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the configuration process)
Let’s take a better look at these steps.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings in your web server that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your website may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like implementing spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to configure a number of external sites or online solutions.
Configuring External Services
The concept behind adding external sites is that all of your content gets published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it gets automatically distributed to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external platforms to your setup, content linked back to your website will be automatically syndicated to these platforms. Your content and site will then receive added exposure online, helping you tap into new sources of traffic.
Some sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site to help save time and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with essential information, tools and reports about your website.
Once your Google Search Console account and site data have been set up, use the details to automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, marketing efforts, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrals, etc.
After setting up your account and site details, traffic monitoring data can be easily integrated with WordPress using a plugin and and sent to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account and site details with Bing Webmaster Tools have been set up, this information can be used to automate web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers website owners a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your traffic generation system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media and social bookmarking accounts in order to configure these as part of 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 get new visitors to your site.
You should set up accounts and profile pages with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick those that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add an RSS feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your own RebelMouse social feed.
There are various sites and platforms that can be added to your web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress – Global Settings
Your WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Section)
As described in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services text area
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
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 influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website to read the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as your traffic system is concerned, however, the most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically notify all the update services you have listed in the Update Services section when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion Settings
Although the settings in this section are mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to blogs 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)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your permalinks …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using permalinks in WordPress here: Setting Up Your WordPress Permalinks
WordPress Traffic Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality to your website, 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 handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No website is guaranteed immunity from a cyberattack.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to bots and hackers.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website …
(WP Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your website’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with their social networks can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website using WordPress plugins)
There are many free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Many social sharing plugins allow you to 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 plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which users can unlock by sharing your page.
Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring design and layout aspects of your site, some themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your content is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
Additional Sections To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do business online, you need to ensure that your site stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
For a detailed article about how to quickly add legal pages to your site, go here:
Post Tags & Categories
WordPress categories and tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your website.
(Categories help search engines classify and index your pages, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your site’s tags and categories during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories you have set up.
Visitor Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications find your online content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Only search engine bots can read XML sitemaps. Although search engines like Google will index your site just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – An Additional Source Of Web Traffic!
When online visitors type in the wrong URL or click on a link pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they will normally be greeted with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 Not Found error page can be configured to funnel traffic to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your web server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do is post web content on a consistent basis to automatically generate more web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise required to perform this stage of the traffic automation process typically takes some website developers months to acquire.
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 covered in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read more, click here:
This article is part of an article series designed to help website owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively using a WordPress-powered website and proven marketing methods that are easy and quick to implement.
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