Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic generating machine using WordPress.
In Part One of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is publish content on a regular basis to generate more traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing website was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured in order to automatically attract new traffic just by regularly adding content to your site.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive on a global scale and are looking for any opportunity they can to improve their results and performance online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can be a huge advantage over other competitors. With an expertly configured WordPress site, you have a significant 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 set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here’s one way to explain the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!)
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 expertise.
To illustrate this point here is a joke.
Knowing Where To Tap
All was going according to schedule in the widget-making assembly line when suddenly, all machinery stopped.
As no one could figure out what happened, the floor manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
The expert arrived shortly afterward and walked immediately towards the control box. After staring silently at the control unit for no more than 5 minutes or so, the expert then produced a teeny-weeny hammer from his utility belt and made a single tap near the bottom-left edge of the box.
Immediately, the whole workshop lit up and began to work again.
The floor manager was delighted as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
The factory manager called the expert, demanding to know why he had charged them so much for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrived and was placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for spending years building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog configured so all you have to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other online 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 attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although many experts often make difficult solutions look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to work things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than installing a website and configuring basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up to achieve desired results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to make sure everything works to plan, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite involved and complicated. This is because it’s not just about installing a solution, clicking on a button or two … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of various different parts such as your web hosting server, your site, and a number of third-party sites and/or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we create a simple flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these steps in more detail.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for site installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your hosting account that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your website will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like implementing spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
Once your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites.
External Sites And Accounts – Configuration
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all content will be published to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get distributed automatically to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external platforms have been added to your traffic network, content linking back to your site is automatically added to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social sites, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your website will then receive exposure online, helping you tap into a whole new audience and source of traffic.
Some third-party sites and solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress settings to 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 Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of important information, tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your account with Google Search Console, use this information with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic results, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add traffic tracking code to WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data automatically to various other online applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account is set up, you can use your account information to integrate and automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress provides users with a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional business presence online.
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 show you how to integrate this into your traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need your social media and social bookmarking accounts set up 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 attract new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have accounts set up with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we discuss some of these tools in greater detail further below and during the Automation phase).
(There are lots of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online web platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
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 visitors can follow your account.
There are many different sites and platforms that can be added to your traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Global Settings – WordPress
Your WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and frequently overlooked traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Section)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(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 your content gets seen by readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up 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 or blog to get the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to notify all the update services you have listed when new posts get 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
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 sites 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 Section)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow your site to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks Screen)
Here are some of the ways your permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
To learn more about setting up WordPress permalinks, see this step-by-step tutorial: Configuring WordPress Permalinks
Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to increase traffic
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is completely safe from being attacked by hackers.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to attacks from hackers and bots.
For more details, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages more search engine friendly …
(WP SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, crawl and index, it also lets you specify how to present your content in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing to your site using free or inexpensive plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins to choose from.
Many social share plugins allow you to specify which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring Settings – WordPress Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, some themes also provide built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a free theme) come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons to your website is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic System Configuration – Other Features
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do business online, you need to ensure that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
To learn more about how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your site, refer to this article:
Post Tags And Post Categories
WordPress categories and tags help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.
(Post categories help to improve your site’s SEO, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and post categories should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools find your online content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although search engines like Google will 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 can result in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – An Additional Source Of Traffic!
When visitors searching for your website type in the wrong URL or click on a dead hyperlink, they are presented with an error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do to automatically begin attracting more traffic is publish great content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many website developers months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively and drive traffic organically using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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