Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to attract new web traffic is publish content on a consistent basis!)
In Part 2, we discussed 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 existing site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will discuss the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that visitors will automatically start flowing just by publishing content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as their greatest challenge online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive and are exploring every advantage available to improve their results and performance online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage over other competitors. For businesses, having an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start as soon as their website is launched.
The Configuration Phase 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 an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here’s one way to explain the main difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does it take extra work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this point here’s a little story.
Knowing Where To Tap
Things were moving along in the gizmo-making assembly line when all of a sudden, everything ground to a halt.
As no one could figure out what happened, the floor manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert went directly to the control box. After staring at the box for no more than 5 minutes or so, the expert then took out a teeny-weeny hammer and made a single tap about 1 inch from the right corner of the unit.
Immediately, the assembly line started working once more.
The manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager received a request of payment for services for $5,000.
The manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why the expert had charged them such a ludicrous fee for less than 5 minutes work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived and was placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when production 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 demand fair compensation for years spent acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WP blog configured so all you had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other web 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 website?)
While experts often make complicated situations and problems look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring site settings for clients. It involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up and activated to get certain results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to make sure things function as expected, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. This is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a plugin, tweaking some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of different parts such as your web hosting server, your website or blog, and various external sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine what’s involved in more detail.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes. What we are talking about, is configuring settings in your hosting account that affect how you will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web-hosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your business will attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwanted traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like configuring spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
After your server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step is to set up and configure a number of external sites.
External Services
The purpose of adding external sites is that all of your content gets published from one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it gets automatically distributed to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external platforms to your network, content linked back to your site is automatically fed to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social sites, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your content and business will be exposed to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some of the sites and services will need to have accounts 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 before configuring your WordPress site:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with useful information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your Google Webmasters account has been set up, this information can be used with web traffic-related settings 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 efforts, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, your account code can be added to WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account, you can use the account information to integrate and automate traffic 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 provides users with a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan 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 at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your web traffic system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media and social bookmarking 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 accounts and attract new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have profiles set up with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can You can syndicate your content to many social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we discuss some of these tools in more detail further below and in the Automation phase).
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online web platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. 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 site that lets you add a feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse website.
There are various platforms that can be added to your own web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up third-party site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its 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 settings section)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
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 specifically chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services box
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section displays only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers 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 website or blog to read the rest of the content from excerpts, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The most important setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically notify various update services whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings enable your site to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your permalink URLs …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, refer to this tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring Settings – WordPress Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality to your site, including plugins with features that help to 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 website for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No website is safe from a cyberattack.
(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 bots.
Go here for more info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web content easily indexable …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO Plugin)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your website’s SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines to find, crawl and index, it also lets you specify how to present your content to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing features to your website using free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website with WordPress plugins.
Many social sharing plugins let you choose which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress Theme Settings – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as clicking a few buttons to enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic Configuration – Additional Features
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can cause serious damage to your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of business online, it’s important that your site stays compliant with all regulations.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
Tags & Post Categories
WordPress post categories & tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your web pages.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s categories and tags should be set up during the Website Planning Process.
When considering ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A visitor site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites discover your online content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. HTML site maps are web pages that link to all other content on your site and provide users with a visual map of how your content is organized, while XML sitemaps are mostly just a bunch of code that only search bots can interpret. Although search engines like Google can index your site 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.
Configure Your 404 Error Page
When visitors searching online for your site type in the wrong web address into their web browser or click on a dead hyperlink, they are presented with a 404 page …
(A 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(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 plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do is publish fresh content on a regular basis to automatically drive traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform the configuration stage of the traffic automation process can take some website developers months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is covered in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To keep reading this article, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping site owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively and drive traffic automatically with a WordPress website or blog and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
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