Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a website into an automated traffic generating machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to start attracting traffic is post content consistently!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the blueprint. 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 site, and what to do if your site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section, we look at the configuration stage of this process. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured to automatically start bringing traffic when you begin publishing content on your web site.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by website owners as their greatest challenge online. With business getting so much more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth looking into any and every advantage that can help you get better results online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage over the competition. With an expertly configured website, you have a significant competitive advantage from the very beginning.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
There is a significant 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.
Here’s one way to understand the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate 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 anecdote.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All was going fine in the widget factory when all of a sudden, production ground to a complete stop.
As no one could figure out what happened, the manager decided to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert walked directly to the control box. After staring silently at the box for less than 2 minutes, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy little hammer and made a very gentle tap about two cm from the left-hand corner of the box.
Immediately, the plant started working as before.
The floor manager was filled with joy as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
The manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay such an exorbitant fee 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 and was placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive visitors to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the 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 ask to be compensated fairly for spending years building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a website set up and configured so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other online properties would be immediately 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?)
While many experts often make difficult 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 requires more than just installing a website and configuring basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed to get various functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party services you need to set up and activate to achieve desired results
- Which settings you need to configure to ensure that everything will function the way you have planned, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite involved. This is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a piece of software, clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of a number of different components such as your web hosting server, your WordPress site, and a number of third-party sites and/or online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If all the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a brief look at these areas.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your server that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your site will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like implementing spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess and 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
Once your server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites.
Integration With External Sites
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all of your content should be posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it will radiate outwards to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you incorporate these external platforms into your configuration, content pointing back to your site is automatically posted to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social networks, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your business will be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your settings 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 site’s settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of important information, tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your Google Webmaster Tools account, you can use your details to automate traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, traffic monitoring data can be easily integrated with WordPress via a plugin used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account with Bing Webmaster Tools have been set up, you can use this information to automate web traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers users a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your social media and social bookmarking accounts 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 sites and get new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have accounts set up with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick the ones that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will review some of these tools in greater detail further below and in the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to many social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging web platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add your WordPress blog 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 users can follow your own RebelMouse account.
There are many different solutions you can incorporate into your own web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
Configuring WordPress For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
WordPress Settings
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress will do 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 Settings
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, your choice of displaying the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to get 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 most important setting here as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to instantly notify your update services list whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have created a detailed tutorial about using WordPress permalinks here: Changing WordPress Permalinks
Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality imaginable 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
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your site is something you cannot ignore.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and botnets.
More info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(WordPress Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your website’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with their own networks can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social features to your website with WordPress plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Many social sharing plugins allow you to select which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update 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 pages which users can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring Settings – WP Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes allow you to configure settings for improved traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as clicking a few buttons and enabling the function …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure For Better Traffic
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), you need to make sure that your site complies with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?)
If you need help understanding the importance of having a legally compliant website, go here:
Post Categories & Tags
Categories & post tags help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.
(Post categories help search engines index your website, which improves traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s post tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
A site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. HTML site maps provide readers 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 understand. Although search engines like Google will index your site 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.
Configure Your 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching for your site type in the wrong web address or click on an invalid hyperlink, they will typically be greeted with an error page (known as a 404 error page) …
(A 404 Not Found error page)
A 404 page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do is publish web content on a regular basis to begin bringing traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The skills and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some web professionals a long time 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 explained in the next section of the WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive tutorial series designed to help website owners learn how to grow their business using a WordPress-driven website and proven web marketing strategies.
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