Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a website into an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do is add content on a consistent basis to begin bringing more traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase of the blueprint. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we look at the configuration phase of this process. The focus of this section is to help you understand what makes an expertly configured site different from a professionally configured one. You will also discover how much work needs to be done to make sure that when everything is set up and configured, you will get visitors automatically simply by consistently publishing web content on your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by website owners as their greatest challenge online. With competition making business survival increasingly more difficult businesses are researching any advantage they can that can help you improve their performance online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can be a huge advantage over other competitors. With an expertly configured WordPress site, you have a significant advantage from the word “go”.
The Configuration Stage Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by a web-building expert 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 professional web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
To illustrate this point here is a little story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Things are running smoothly in the widget-making factory when everything comes to a sudden stop.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert heads immediately towards the main control box. After staring silently at the control unit for 2 minutes or so, the expert then takes out a tiny little hammer and makes a single tap near the left edge of the box.
Immediately, the machinery starts working as before.
The manager is greatly relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a bill for $5,000.
Feeling angry, the factory manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged such a large amount of money for less than five minutes work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive web traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the plant stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to get paid fairly for spending years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP web site set up and configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other web 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 website?)
Although the solution to many problems may seem ridiculously simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up to achieve specific outcomes
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to ensure that everything functions as envisioned, etc.
(Generating 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 time-consuming. It’s not just about installing and configuring one or two plugins, configuring some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration stage is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your WordPress site, and various external sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we create a simple diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved in more detail.
Configuring The Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your hosting account that affect how you will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your website will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
Once your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step is to set up and configure various third-party sites.
Configuring External Services
The basic idea of choosing external sites is that all of your content should be posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will radiate outwards to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external platforms into your traffic system, content linked back to your website gets automatically added to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your site will then be given exposure to a new audience and new sources of traffic.
Some sites and online solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to help speed up the configuration process 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 before configuring your site:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of useful data, tools and reports about your website.
Once your account with Google Webmaster Tools are set up, you can use your details with traffic-related 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 performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your up your account and entered your site details, you can add your account information to all of your web pages in WordPress using plugins and send data automatically to other online applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account and site data are set up, you can use this information to integrate and automate traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers website owners the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which a number of 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 traffic generation system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need your social media accounts set up 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 and social bookmarking accounts and get new traffic to your site.
You should have profiles set up with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are many social sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse account.
There are various technologies and third-party applications you can incorporate into your web 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 external sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress Site Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Global WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress admin area includes a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains an important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – 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 purposely configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section includes only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
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
***
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
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, your choice to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your site to view the rest of the content from excerpts, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned 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 your site to ping the update services list when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Global 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks enable WordPress to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the options for configuring your site’s SEO-friendly URLs …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using permalinks in WordPress here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
WordPress – Traffic Generation Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add almost every type of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
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 WordPress site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is completely safe from cyberattacks.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to bots and hackers.
Go here for more info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by improving your site’s ability to rank better in search engines)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with their social networks can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you provide content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site with WordPress plugins)
You can add social features to your site easily using WordPress plugins.
Many social plugins let you choose which social 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 social share plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which users can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress – Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing features to your site 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 – Other Don’t Forget These
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwanted traffic but also for all the situations that can damage your business as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you do business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site is found to comply with all legal requirements.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
For a detailed article about how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website, go here:
Tags & Post Categories
WordPress post tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your web pages.
(Categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s SEO.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your site’s post tags and post categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post categories and tags have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits and results.
HTML Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools discover your online content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just using 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 results in increased traffic.
Configure Your WordPress 404 Page
When visitors type in the wrong web address or click on an invalid hyperlink, they will normally be greeted with an error page (known as a 404 error page) …
(A 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect 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 let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do is add great content regularly to begin bringing traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of skills and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some website professionals months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as can be automated. This step is explained in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part Three
To keep reading, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping business owners learn how to grow their business online with a WordPress website and proven online marketing strategies.
Get Notified When New Tutorials Get Published – Subscribe To Our Site!
***
"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
***