Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your website into an automated traffic generating machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is post content on a regular basis to automatically attract web traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of this process. We helped you understand the best way to start 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 existing site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration phase of the traffic system. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured in order to automatically get traffic whenever you add new content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as their greatest challenge online. Also, the business landscape is becoming ever more competitive on a global scale and businesses are looking for any and every opportunity they can to get better results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a huge advantage. Having an expertly configured website gives your business a flying start as soon as your site is launched.
The Configuration Process Is What Makes The Difference
There is a significant 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’s one way to describe the differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence plus an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does it take additional labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let me illustrate this point with a story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All was going well in the widget-making plant when things ground to a sudden stop.
No one could figure out what happened and so the floor manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert immediately walked to the main control box. After staring at the schematics for 3 minutes or less, the expert then produced a little hammer and made a very gentle tap about 3 inches from the right corner of the unit.
Immediately, everything in the plant started working once more.
The 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 manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why they were being charged such an exorbitant fee for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work and promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic to their sites.
How much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to ask to be compensated fairly for years spent acquiring the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WP web site configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other traffic-generating 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 attracting new visitors to your site?)
While experts often make difficult solutions look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party accounts need to be set up and activated to get certain outcomes
- Which options need to be configured to make sure things will work as planned, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not technically challenging, but it’s quite involved and complicated. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a piece of software, tweaking some settings in your admin area or clicking a button … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of many components including your server, your website, and a number of third-party sites or online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we create a simplified diagram of the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved in more detail.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings and options in your web server that affect how your site will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic you may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like configuring server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, 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.
External Web Properties & Services – Configuration
The basic concept of choosing external sites is that all content will get published to one central location (your site) and from there, it will be automatically distributed to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external sites to your traffic network, content linking back to your website will be automatically posted to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your site’s 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 before configuring your WordPress settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmasters lets you tell 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 Search Console account and entering site details, you can use your details to integrate and automate traffic 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 traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add tracking information to WordPress via a Google Analytics plugin and send data automatically to various other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account has been with Bing are set up, this information can be used with web traffic 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 hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to grow a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, 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 this into your automated web traffic generation system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need your social media and social bookmarking accounts set up in order to integrate these with 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 and social bookmarking accounts and get new traffic to your site.
You should set up accounts and profile pages with all of the leading 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 choose those that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(You can syndicate your content to many social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online web platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to 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 account.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications you can add to your web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains an important and frequently overlooked traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As stated in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have purposely configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, only one service is available …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post 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 visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog 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 would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to instantly notify your update services list when a new post gets 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 Settings
Although discussion settings 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 posts, 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
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the ways permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using permalinks in WordPress here: How To Set Up Your WordPress Permalinks
WordPress – Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic to your site
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with the effects of 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, web security is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to attacks from hackers and botnets.
Go here to learn more:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your site’s ability to rank better in search engines)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your website’s search engine optimization. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also lets you specify how to display your content to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with members of their own online communities can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you provide content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social sharing plugins let you 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 plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring WordPress Traffic Features In Themes
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 design and layout aspects of your website, some themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your site is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to configure your settings and enable the function …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic System Configuration – Other Sections
Last (but by no means least) in the configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you do any kind of business online (or plan to), it’s important that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?)
For a detailed article about why it’s important to have a compliant website, refer to this article:
WordPress Post Categories & Tags
Post categories & tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your web pages.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and categories should be discussed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
When configuring your website or blog to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications find your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Only search engines can interpret XML sitemaps. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just using 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 can result in increased traffic.
Your 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching online for your site enter the wrong web address or click on an invalid hyperlink, they will typically be greeted with a 404 error page …
(A 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up in your web server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do is add content on a consistent basis to begin attracting new web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various elements and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The expertise required to perform the configuration phase of the traffic automation process typically takes many web professionals a long time to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is addressed in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Part 3
To continue reading about this topic, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping website owners learn how to grow their business online with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven web marketing strategies.
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