Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic generating machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is add fresh content regularly to automatically bring web traffic!)
In Part 2, we focused on critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this article, we look at the configuration phase of the traffic system. The focus of this section is to help you understand why an expertly configured WordPress site is different, and just what type of work is required to ensure that when everything is fully set up and configured, you can attract new visitors automatically as you begin to publish new content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With competition making business survival increasingly more difficult businesses are exploring every advantage they can that can help you increase their competitiveness online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage over the competition. For business owners, having an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start as soon as their website is launched.
The Configuration Process Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site 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’s a simple way to understand the difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only is more labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this here is a little story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All is going well in the widget-making factory when everything suddenly comes to a stop.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert immediately heads to the control box. After staring silently at the wiring board for about 2 minutes or less, the expert then takes out a teensy-weensy hammer and makes a single tap about 2 cm from the top-left edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything springs back to life.
The plant manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager receives an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
Bewildered and confused, the manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them such a large amount of money for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the plant stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one in the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for spending years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately assess and repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP site set up so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social networks and dozens of other web properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems is often ridiculously simple once implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up to get certain results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure in order to make sure everything will function exactly as you have envisioned, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. It’s not as easy as installing a piece of software, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many parts such as your web hosting server, your website or blog, and a number of third-party sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for site installation purposes. What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your hosting account specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your website can attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like configuring server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and services.
Integration With External Solutions
The purpose of adding external sites is that all content should be posted to one central location (your site) and from there, get distributed automatically to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external platforms to your system, content with links pointing back to your site will get automatically syndicated to search, social and aggregator sites. Your site will then be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the third-party sites and online services will need to be set up before configuring your site’s settings to speed up the process 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 Search Console)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of useful information, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site details are set up, this information can be used with traffic 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 performance, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up Google Analytics, you can add your account information to all of your web pages in WordPress using a simple plugin and feed data instantly to many other online applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account and entering site details, this information can be used to automate traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers users the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your web traffic system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social accounts set up 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 bring new visitors to your site.
You should set up accounts and profiles with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work well with your system and/or content syndication tools (we will review some of these tools in more detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add an RSS feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your account.
There are various solutions that can be incorporated into your own web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
Configuring Your WordPress Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains an important and frequently overlooked traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have purposely chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section contains only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post to this section …
(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
This section affects how visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to get the rest of the content from a partial feed, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting in this section as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to automatically notify various update services whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
Although discussion settings 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 posts, 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks enable WordPress to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, refer to this tutorial: Configuring Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring Settings – Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to bring more visitors to your site
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is immune from being attacked by hackers.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to botnets and hackers.
To learn more, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages more search engine friendly …
(WP Plugins For SEO – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines to find, classify and index, it allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with others online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social features to your website with WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site using free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social plugins allow you to choose which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
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 design and layout aspects of your site, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your site is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic – Other Aspects To Consider
Last (but by no means least) in the WordPress traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of business online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your site remains compliant with government laws and regulations.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
We have written a detailed article on the importance of having a compliant website here:
Categories & Post Tags
Post categories & tags help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which helps to increase traffic.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your website.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s post categories and tags during the Website Planning Phases.
When looking at ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal results.
Site Map
A visitor site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover more of your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. HTML site maps are web pages that provide readers with a an understandable map of how your content is structured, whereas XML sitemaps contain code that only search engine bots can understand. Although Google can index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your Site’s 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching for your site enter the wrong web address or click on a dead hyperlink, they are presented with an error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do is post content on a consistent basis to drive web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some web developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next section of the WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively and drive traffic sustainably with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven web marketing strategies.
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