Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new visitors automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to automatically attract traffic is add content regularly!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. We explained the best way to get started 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 website was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured in order to automatically start attracting new traffic whenever you add fresh content to your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Also, the business landscape is becoming ever more competitive worldwide and businesses are exploring every advantage they believe will help them get better results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge advantage over the competition. With an expertly configured website, you have an immediate advantage from the very beginning.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here is a simple way to explain the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this here is an anecdote.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All is humming along in the gizmo-making workshop when the equipment suddenly stops.
No one can figure out what went wrong and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert heads straight towards the control box. After staring at the electronic components for no more than 2 minutes, the expert then takes out a little hammer and makes a single tap near the right edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything comes back to life.
The floor manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Feeling furious, the manager dials the expert. Demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a large amount of money for less than 5 minutes work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives and is placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one on the factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to ask to be compensated fairly for having invested years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your website or blog set up so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social networks and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be instantly 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 attracting new visitors to your website?)
Although experts often make complex solutions look easy, 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 involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up to get certain results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to ensure that things function exactly as you have envisioned, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite involved and complicated. It’s not as easy as installing a plugin, configuring some options and settings in your dashboard area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of various different parts including your web hosting server, your website, and a number of external sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is configuring settings in your server 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 your website will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like implementing server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and services.
External Sites
The concept behind adding external sites is that all of your content will be published from a central location (your site) and from there, it will get automatically distributed to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external sites have been added to your configuration, content pointing back to your website is automatically syndicated to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your site will be given added exposure to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress settings to speed up the process 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 website or blog)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of important information, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account is with Google are set up, use the account information to automate traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add visitor tracking code to all of your web pages in WordPress via plugins and feed data automatically to other 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 and entering site data, the account details can be used with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated web traffic generation system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media and social bookmarking accounts 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 attract new visitors to your site.
You should have profiles set up with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose the ones that will work well with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(You can post your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add a feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an 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 solutions you can add to your own web traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Global Settings
By default, your WordPress dashboard area includes a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress will do the rest …
(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 have an influence traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to view 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 your traffic system is concerned, however, the most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to notify various update services whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion Settings
Although this section is 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 Section)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your permalink URLs …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using WP permalinks here: How To Change Your WordPress Permalinks
WordPress – Traffic Generation Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your web sites.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to hackers and botnets.
Go here for more information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your web pages …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help increase traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social features to your site easily with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins to choose from.
Most social sharing plugins let you select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress Theme Features – Configuration
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 layout and design elements of your site, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your content is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons and enabling the feature …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic – Other Areas To Consider
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can damage your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site complies with all regulations.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
If you need help understanding why it’s important to have a compliant website, go here:
Post Categories And Tags
Tags & categories help search engines better organize and index your web pages, which improves traffic.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your website.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your site’s post tags and post categories during the Website Planning Process.
When configuring your web site to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags that have been set up.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
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 applications discover your website content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – Don’t Forget This!
When online users enter the wrong URL or click on an invalid hyperlink, they will typically be presented with an error – page not found message …
(A 404 Page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do then is add new content on a regular basis to automatically begin bringing more traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many website professionals a long time to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is addressed in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part Three
To continue reading about this topic, click here:
This article is part of an article series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-driven website and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
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