Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive traffic automatically to your website using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is add fresh content regularly to automatically begin attracting traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase. We helped you understand 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 site was 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 stage of the traffic automation process. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to automatically attract web traffic just by consistently publishing content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business becoming increasingly more competitive, it’s worth learning about every opportunity you can to get better results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand is a huge competitive advantage. With an expertly configured WordPress site, you have a significant 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 installed and set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to describe the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and a built-in 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 kind of expert knowledge.
Allow me to illustrate this with an amusing story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything was going fine in the gizmo-making manufacturing plant when things came to a sudden stop.
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 walked immediately towards the control box. After staring at the wiring diagrams for no more than 2 minutes, the expert then produced a little hammer and made a very gentle tap about one inch from the right-hand corner of the control unit.
Immediately, everything returned to normal.
The manager was grateful and relieved as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The factory manager picked up the phone and 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. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving new visitors to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production stopped functioning 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 building up the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly assess and fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP website or blog configured so all you had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other traffic-generating 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 driving traffic to your site?)
Although many experts often make complicated situations and problems look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services you need to set up and activate to get certain outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured to make sure everything works as envisioned, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. This is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring one or two plugins, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and so much more.
The configuration phase is a process that involves your server, your site, and various external sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the configuration process)
Let’s examine these steps in more detail.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your web server that affect how your website will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic you will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like implementing spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to set up and configure a number of external sites.
External Services
The idea behind adding external sites is that all of your content will get posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will syndicate automatically to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external sites into your setup, content linked back to your site will be automatically published on search, social and aggregator sites. Your business will be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the external sites 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, here are just some of the accounts you will need to have set up before configuring your site:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of useful data, SEO tools and reports about your website.
Once your account and site data with Google Webmaster Tools have been set up, you can use this information with traffic-related 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 site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your up your account and entered your site data, you can add your account information to WordPress via a simple Google Analytics plugin and feed data automatically to other useful applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account, this information can be used with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers users a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which various WordPress plugins can access. 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 4 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 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 traffic to your site.
You should 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 accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(You can post your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging web platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse account.
There are many different platforms that can be incorporated into your own traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up third-party site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
Configuring Your WordPress 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.
Configuring WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress admin area includes a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains an important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As described below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of update services entered into the Update Services section
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
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
***
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 visitors 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 content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in 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 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 your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically notify various update services when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion
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 content, 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)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings Section)
The examples below show some of the ways your permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using permalinks here: How To Set Up WordPress Permalinks
Configuring Settings – WordPress Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of 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 bring more visitors to your site
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No website is completely immune from being attacked.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and bots.
For more details, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(WP SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your site’s search engine optimization. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with others can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social features to your site using WordPress plugins)
You can add social sharing buttons to your website easily with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social plugins let you 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 share plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring WordPress Traffic Generation Theme Features
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 layout and design of your site, some themes also include built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a free theme) allow you to configure settings and options for better traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages 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)
Other Areas To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwanted traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of business online, it’s important that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
WordPress Categories And Tags
WordPress tags & categories help search engines classify and index your web pages, which improves traffic.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your website.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s post tags and categories should be reviewed and set up during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, 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 benefits.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A visitor site map that displays all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications find more of your online content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Only search engine bots can read an XML sitemap. Although Google will index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – An Additional Source Of Web Traffic!
When visitors searching for your site enter the wrong web address or click on links pointing to pages on your site that no longer exist, they will typically be presented with an error – page not found message …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do then is publish fresh content on a consistent basis to automatically begin attracting more web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some website professionals 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 article in our series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help business owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively and drive traffic sustainably using a WordPress website and proven online marketing strategies.
Would You Like To Get Automatically Notified When New Tutorials Are Published? Then Subscribe Using The Form Below!
***
"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie
***