Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new visitors automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to automatically start generating web traffic is publish fresh content consistently!)
In Part Two, we focused on critical setup decisions. We explained 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 using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this section, we discuss the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. You will understand what makes an expertly configured site different. You will also discover just what type of work needs to be done to make sure that when all is set up and fully configured, you will bring web traffic automatically when you begin adding content to your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business becoming so much more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth exploring any advantage available to improve your performance and results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage. For businesses, having an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
The Configuration Process 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 a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s one way to explain the key difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a joke.
A Semi-True Story …
All was going just fine in the widget factory when production suddenly ground to a complete stop.
As no one could figure out what went wrong, the floor manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and, without uttering a word, headed immediately towards the main control box. After staring silently at the circuit board for less than 3 minutes, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy hammer from his utility belt and made a single tap about 2 inches from the right edge of the box.
Immediately, the assembly line came back to life.
The floor manager was relieved as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager received an invoice for the sum of $5,000.
The factory manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged so much for less than 5 minutes work and promptly 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 main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for years spent acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to assess and repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your website configured so all you had to do is publish new content and search engines, social networks and dozens of other web properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
While the solution to many problems may seem ridiculously easy once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to figure things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up to achieve desired results
- Which options you need to configure to make sure everything will work as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite involved and complicated. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing and configuring one or two plugins, clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your server, your site, and a number of external sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these areas.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for site installation purposes. What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your website may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
After fine-tuning your server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and services.
External Sites
The basic concept of adding external sites is that all of your content gets published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it then gets distributed automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external platforms to your network, content linked back to your website is automatically syndicated to search, social and aggregator sites. Your site will then receive exposure online, helping your business tap into a whole new audience and traffic source.
Some sites and online platforms will need to have accounts 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, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with useful data, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site data with Google have been set up, this information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic settings and notifications 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, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
After setting up your account, account information can be added to all of your web pages in WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and and sent to other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account with Bing, your information can be used with traffic-related 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 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 features, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at 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
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media 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 social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site.
Set up profiles with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can syndicate your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(You can post your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add a feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute social content to social networks)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your website.
There are various solutions that can be added to your own web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
By default, your WordPress dashboard area includes a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As described in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services box
By default, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(Notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
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 traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to view 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 check box is enabled or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly ping all the update services you have listed in the Update Services box 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, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
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 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways your permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using permalinks here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is completely immune from cyberattacks.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website 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 web pages more indexable …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress Plugin)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your website’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find, crawl and index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing features to your site with WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social sharing to your website with WordPress plugins.
Most social share plugins allow you to select which 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 plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which users can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, many themes also provide built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a free theme) can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic Automation – Additional Configuration Steps
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website 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 cause serious damage to your business when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you make money online (or plan to), it’s important that your site complies with government regulations.
(Does Your Site Comply With The Law?)
If you need help understanding the importance of having a compliant website, refer to this article:
WordPress Tags & Post Categories
WordPress post categories and tags help to improve your site’s search optimization, which improves traffic.
(Post categories help search engines index your website, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s tags and categories should be set up during the Website Planning Phases.
When configuring your site to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits and results.
HTML Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications discover your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Only search engine bots can interpret an XML sitemap. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Your Site’s 404 Page Not Found
When visitors type in the wrong URL or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they will normally be greeted with an error – page not found message …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up on your server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your website has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you then need to do is publish new content on a regular basis to automatically drive more traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration stage of the traffic automation process can take many web professionals a long time to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is addressed in the next article in the WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Part Three
To continue reading about this topic, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online using a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
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