Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to start generating more traffic is post great content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we focused on critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. We will show you why an expertly configured WordPress site is different, and how much work is required to make sure that when all is fully set up and configured, new web traffic will automatically start flowing when you begin to add content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With competition making business survival increasingly more difficult businesses are researching any and every advantage they believe will help them increase their competitiveness online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge advantage over the competition. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start as soon as their site is launched.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to understand the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take more labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a joke.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All is going fine in the widget-making plant when production suddenly stops.
As no one can figure out what went wrong, the plant manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Soon afterward, the expert arrives and, without saying a word, walks directly to the main control box. After staring silently at the wiring board for less than 5 minutes or so, the expert then produces a tiny little hammer from his pocket and makes a single tap about 3 cm from the right corner of the box.
Immediately, the machinery returns once more to normal.
The plant manager is filled with joy as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Furious, the manager picks up the phone and dials the expert. Why had they had been charged so much for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work? He then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production stopped working and no one in the factory floor was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to demand fair compensation for years spent developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately assess and repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your website or blog configured so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social media and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
While experts often make complex situations and problems look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to work things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than just installing a website and configuring some basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add certain functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party services need to be set up to get specific results
- Which options need to be configured in order to ensure that things will work as expected, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a plugin, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase is a process that involves your server, your site, and various external sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simplified diagram of the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the configuration process)
Let’s take a brief look at these steps.
Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your webhosting account that affect how your site will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic you will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like integrating server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess and 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, 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 external sites and services.
External Sites
The purpose of adding external sites is that all of your content will be posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get automatically distributed to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external sites have been added to your system, content linked back to your website is automatically posted to these platforms. Your content receives additional exposure online, helping your business tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of these third-party sites will need to be set up before configuring your 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:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of important data, tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account with Google, your account details can be used with web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, you can add your account code to all of your web pages in WordPress using a simple plugin and send data instantly to other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, your account information can be used with traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers website owners the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to build 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 with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your automated web traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social media 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 bring new visitors to your site.
You should have profiles set up with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can You can syndicate your content to loads of social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute your content to social networks)
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 own RebelMouse account.
There are many different platforms you can add to your traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
Configuring Your WordPress Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
Your WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains an important and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As stated in this 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, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website to read the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as your traffic system is concerned, however, the main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly notify various update services when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(Global 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 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)
Permalinks
Permalinks enable your site to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your site’s post permalinks …
(Configuring post permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
WordPress – Traffic Generation Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help your site generate more traffic
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No web site is completely safe from cyber attacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bots and hackers.
To learn more, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your site more search engine friendly …
(WordPress Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social features to your website with free or inexpensive plugins)
You can add social sharing features to your website easily with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social sharing plugins let you specify which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which users 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 can help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a free theme) come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing 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 – Other Important Aspects To Consider
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do any kind of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
For a detailed article on how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website, see this article:
WordPress Post Tags And Categories
WordPress post categories & tags help search engines classify and index your web pages, which improves traffic.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s tags and categories should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Phases.
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.
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 find more of your web 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 thing. Although Google will index your site just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your Site’s 404 Page
When visitors searching for your website type in the wrong URL or click on an invalid link, they will normally be presented with an error page (known as a 404 error page) …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 Not Found error page can be configured to funnel visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then is publish content regularly to start generating new web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise required to perform this stage of the traffic automation process can take many web developers a long time to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Section 3
To keep reading about this topic, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of an article series designed to help website owners learn how to grow their business online and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-powered 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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