Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your website into an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is post new content on a regular basis to bring more web traffic!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing website was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration stage of this process. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured to automatically begin driving traffic just by regularly adding fresh content on your web site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business getting ever more competitive worldwide, it’s worth learning about any and every advantage that can help you increase your own competitiveness online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage over the competition. For business owners, an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the very start.
The Configuration Phase Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to understand the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take more work 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’s an amusing story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything was running smoothly in the gizmo-making workshop when things came to a sudden stop.
As no one could figure out what went wrong, the plant manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrived and, without uttering a word, immediately headed towards the main control box. After staring at the wiring board for 3 minutes, the expert then took out a little hammer and made a single tap about three inches from the left edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything started working again.
The manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager received an invoice for $5,000.
The factory manager called the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrived on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving web traffic to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to be compensated fairly for years spent developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to assess and fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your web site configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and search engines, social sites like Facebook and Twitter and dozens of other online properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
While the solution to many problems often seems quite easy 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 requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which third-party accounts need to be set up and activated to get specific results
- Which options need to be configured in order to make sure everything will work as envisioned, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite involved. It’s not as simple as installing a solution, clicking on a button or two … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of a number of different parts including your web hosting server, your WP site, and a number of external sites and/or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we create a simple flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the configuration phase)
Let’s examine what’s involved in more detail.
Your Server – Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is configuring settings and options in your web server specifically for handling web traffic …
(In 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 will attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like integrating spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess and 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to configure a number of external sites.
Integration With External Accounts
The basic concept of setting up external sites is that all content should be posted to a central location (your site) and from there, get automatically distributed to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external services to your configuration, content linked back to your website is automatically fed to these platforms. Your website will then receive additional exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.
Some web properties and online solutions will need to be set up before configuring your settings to help speed up the 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 WordPress site:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of important data, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site details with Google are set up, your account information can be used with traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details have been set up, tracking information can be added to WordPress using a Google Analytics plugin used with other applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account and entering site details with Bing, the account information can be used with traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers website owners a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated web traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your social media 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 sites and drive new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have pages set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(There are loads of social sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your account.
There are various technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up third-party site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site
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 WordPress Settings
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As described 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 discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services text area
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is available …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(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
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 traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to read 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 traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to notify all the update services you have listed whenever new posts get 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 unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
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 Screen)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways search-friendly URLS can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
To learn more about setting up WP permalinks, see this tutorial: Changing WordPress Permalinks
Configuring Settings – WP Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is completely safe from cyber-attacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to hackers and botnets.
Go here for more info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help increase traffic by making your site more search engine friendly)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your site’s search engine optimization. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it also lets you specify how to display your content in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with others can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social sharing features to your site easily using free or inexpensive plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins to choose from.
Many social share plugins allow you to select 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 share plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress – Traffic Features In Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure settings for better traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic Automation – Other Important Features To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you make money online, it’s important that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With The Law?)
We have written a detailed article about the importance of having a compliant website here:
Post Tags And Post Categories
Post tags and categories help search engines classify and index your web pages, which improves traffic.
(WordPress post categories help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your site’s tags and categories during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and categories that have been set up.
Add A Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Configure Your 404 Error Page
When visitors searching online for your site type in the wrong web address or click on hyperlinks pointing to destinations on your site that no longer exist, they will typically be greeted with a 404 error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to attract new web traffic is publish web content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many website developers a long time 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 explained in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Part 3
To keep reading, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive tutorial series aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively with a WordPress-powered website and proven online marketing methods.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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