Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a website into an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is add fresh content on a regular basis to automatically start driving web traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the automation process. We explained the best way to get started 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 was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured in order to ensure that web traffic will automatically start flowing simply by posting fresh content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business getting ever more competitive, it’s worth looking into any and every opportunity you can to increase your own competitiveness online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage over the competition. An expertly configured website gives your business an immediate competitive advantage from the very beginning.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to explain the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence plus an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a joke.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All is going well in the widget-making factory when all of a sudden, everything stops working.
As no one can figure out what is wrong, the manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert immediately heads to the main control box. After staring silently at the wiring diagrams for no more than 2 minutes, the expert then takes out a teensy-weensy hammer and makes a single tap about 1 cm from the left side of the unit.
Immediately, everything returns to normal.
The plant manager is delighted as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a service bill for $5,000.
Unable to contain his anger, the factory manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged such an exorbitant fee for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive web traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the factory stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one on the factory floor had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for investing years developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your site fully set up so all you had to do is publish new content and search engines, social sites and dozens of other online properties would be automatically 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 attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although many experts often make complex solutions look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party services need to be set up and activated to achieve specific results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to make sure things function as expected, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing a plugin, configuring some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your server, your website or blog, and a number of external sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings and options in your web hosting account that affect how your site will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic you will attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like implementing server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess and 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step is to set up and configure various third-party sites.
External Sites
The idea behind choosing external sites is that all of your content is posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it syndicates automatically to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external sites into your traffic network, content linked back to your site will get automatically added to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your website will then receive exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site to 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 settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of important information, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your Google Webmaster Tools account is set up, this information can be used to integrate and automate traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
After setting up your up your account and site details has been entered, traffic tracking information can be integrated with WordPress via any of several Google Analytics plugins used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account and site data have been set up, this information can be used to automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers users a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your traffic system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your social media and social bookmarking accounts before you can integrate these with your traffic generation system.
Once you have set up and configured 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 have accounts and profile pages with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we will look at some of these tools in more detail during the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to many social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add an RSS feed from your WordPress site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your social feed.
There are various platforms you can incorporate into your own 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.
Once you have configured your web server and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress Site Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings
Your WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As described below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services section
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section contains only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to view 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 here as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically notify the list of update services when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
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 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings Screen)
The examples below show some of the ways site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, see this step-by-step tutorial: Setting Up WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is safe from being attacked by hackers.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
Go here for more info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your web pages …
(WP Plugins For SEO – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines to index, it allows you to configure 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 online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site with free or inexpensive plugins)
You can add social features to your website easily with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social share plugins allow you to select 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 shares), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to protect content which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, some themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your site is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
Other Configuration Features For Your WordPress Site
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle good and unwanted traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you are making money online, you need to ensure that your site complies with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Legally Compliant?)
We have written a detailed article on adding compliance pages to WordPress here:
Post Categories And Tags
WordPress post tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your website.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s categories and tags should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits.
Add A Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools find your site’s 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 two different things. Although Google will index your pages just from 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 results in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – An Additional Source Of Traffic!
When visitors enter the wrong URL or click on an invalid link, they will normally be presented with a 404 error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do is add content on a regular basis to automatically attract web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform this stage of the traffic automation process can take some web developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as can be automated. This step is covered in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively using a WordPress website or blog and proven online marketing methods.
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