Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do is publish web content on a regular basis to automatically start driving web traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the traffic automation 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 site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will look at the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. We will show you how a WordPress site should be configured to bring new traffic automatically simply by posting web content to your site.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business becoming so much more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth learning about every advantage available to increase your own competitiveness online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge competitive advantage. For businesses, an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start as soon as their website is launched.
Configuration 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 an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to describe the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional 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, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
To illustrate this point here’s an amusing story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All was running smoothly in the widget-making factory when all of a sudden, things came to a halt.
As no one could figure out what happened, the manager decided to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert walked directly to the control box. After staring silently at the box for 2 minutes or less, the expert then produced a teeny-weeny hammer from his pocket and made a very gentle tap about one cm from the right-hand edge of the box.
Immediately, the machinery started working once again.
The plant manager was relieved as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager received a request of payment for services rendered for the sum of $5,000.
The manager called the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a ridiculously high fee for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work and promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for investing years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to immediately assess and repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a web site configured so all you have to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube 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?)
Although the solution to many problems may seem quite easy once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to work things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring settings for clients. It requires 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 accounts you need to set up and activate to get desired outcomes
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure in order to make sure processes will work as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved and time-consuming. It’s not as simple as installing and configuring a solution, clicking on a button or two, or configuring some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your web hosting server, your website, and a number of external sites and/or online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we were to create a simplified diagram showing the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram of the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved in more detail.
Configuring Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for website installation purposes. What we are talking about, is tweaking settings in your web server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your webhosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your website can attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites and services.
Configuring External Sites
The basic concept of setting up external sites is that all content should be posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it will radiate outwards to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external services to your setup, content with links pointing back to your site is automatically published on search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and website will be exposed to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some of the third-party sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site to speed up the configuration process 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 site:
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 you with important information, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account and site details with Google Search Console are set up, the information can be used to automate web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, you can add traffic monitoring information to WordPress using plugins and feed data automatically to various other online applications and web properties.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account, use the information with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers users a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social accounts set up before you can 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 and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts and profiles with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with and syndicate your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging web platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute your content to social networks)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your website.
There are many different sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your own traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As described below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, this section lists only one entry …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services 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 visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to read the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The most important setting here as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to ping various update services whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(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)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings enable your site to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your search-friendly URLS …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
If you need help setting up WP permalinks, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
WordPress Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to bring more visitors to your site
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is guaranteed immunity from a cyber attack.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to hackers and botnets.
More information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(WP SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your website’s SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing features to your site using free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site using free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social sharing plugins allow you to select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress – Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring design and layout elements of your website, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing buttons to your content is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to configure your options and enable the function …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwanted traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online, you need to ensure that your website complies with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article on adding compliance pages to WordPress here:
Post Tags & Categories
Tags & categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your website.
(Post categories help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s tags and categories should be reviewed and set up during the Website Planning Stage.
When configuring your web site to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and categories that have been set up.
HTML Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools discover your website content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When visitors type in the wrong web address into their web browser or click on a hyperlink pointing to a page on your website that no longer exists, they are greeted with a 404 error page …
(A 404 Page)
A 404 page can be turned into a useful source of traffic to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found 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 several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do to automatically begin bringing more traffic is post content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration stage of the traffic automation process typically takes some web professionals a long time to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is addressed in the next article in our WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help small business owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively using a WordPress website or blog and proven web marketing strategies.
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