Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new traffic automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to begin attracting more traffic is post new content consistently!)
In Part 2, we discussed 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 site, and what to do if your site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will discuss the configuration stage of this process. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured to automatically start to get new traffic whenever you post fresh content to your site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With competition making business survival progressively tougher businesses are researching any and every opportunity they can to increase their competitiveness online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge advantage over the competition. With an expertly configured WordPress site, you have an immediate competitive advantage from the very start.
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 an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to describe the difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only are more steps required 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.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All was running smoothly in the widget-making factory when all of a sudden, things stopped.
No one could figure out what has happened and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert headed immediately towards the main control box. After staring at the wiring diagrams for no more than 3 minutes or so, the expert then took out a little hammer from his shirt pocket and made a gentle tap about three and half cm from the top-right edge of the box.
Immediately, the whole workshop lit up and started working as before.
The floor manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager received a bill for $5,000.
The factory manager dialed 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 and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive visitors to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise required 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, skills and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and repair a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog set up so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social networks and dozens of other online properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems often seems ridiculously easy once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to figure things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than just installing a website and configuring some basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services need to be set up and activated to achieve specific results
- Which settings need to be configured in order to make sure things will function as expected, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite involved. It’s not as easy as installing and configuring one or two plugins, clicking on a button or two … it’s all of this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many parts such as your web server, your WordPress site, and a number of third-party sites and online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simplified flowchart showing the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is configuring settings and options in your server that affect how your site will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web-hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your website will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like implementing spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these, the next step is to configure a number of third-party sites.
External Accounts
The basic idea of setting up 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 traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external sites to your traffic system, content linked back to your site gets automatically posted to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content will receive added exposure online, helping your business tap into a whole new audience and traffic source.
Some of the third-party sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress settings to help 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:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Search Console lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account, this information can be used with traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic performance, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up your Google Analytics account, you can add traffic monitoring information to WordPress using plugins and send data instantly to various other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account, use your details with traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers users the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, 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 these features into your traffic system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new traffic 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.
Once you have set up and configured everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts with all of the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will look at some of these tools in greater detail during the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to lots of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add an RSS 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 website.
There are many different sites and platforms you can incorporate into your traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress Traffic 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 key areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
Your WordPress administration area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains an important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(WordPress 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 or your webmaster have intentionally chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section lists only one entry …
(Writing Settings – WordPress 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
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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 readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site to get the rest of the content from excerpts, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to instantly notify the update services list when new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
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 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)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings Section)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your site’s permalinks …
(Configuring permalinks)
To learn more about setting up WordPress permalinks, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to attract more visitors to your site
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your web sites is something you cannot ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to bots and hackers.
For more information, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your website’s SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website using free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site with WordPress plugins.
Many social plugins let you choose 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 plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which users can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress – Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes have 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 provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic System Configuration – Additional Features
Last (but by no means least) in the WordPress traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site 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 as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you make money online, it’s important that your website remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done.
(Is Your Site Legally Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article about why it’s important to have a compliant website here:
WordPress Categories And Tags
Tags & categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your website.
(Categories help to improve your site’s search optimization, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s categories and tags earlier on, during the Website Planning Stages.
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 benefits.
Site Map
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 find your online content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. HTML site maps are web pages that provide readers with a logical map of how your content is structured, while XML sitemaps are mostly filled with code that only search bots can read. Although Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page – Don’t Forget This!
When visitors searching for your site enter the wrong URL into their browser or click on a dead link, they will typically be presented with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
A 404 Error Page can redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up in your web server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your website has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do is publish fresh content regularly to automatically drive traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform the configuration process typically takes some website developers months to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help site owners learn how to grow their business online using a WordPress website or blog and proven web 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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