Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your website into an automated traffic generating machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is add content on a regular basis to automatically bring more web traffic!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase of the automation process. 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 website, and what to do if your site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we look at the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. The focus of this section is to help you understand what makes an expertly configured site different, and what type of work needs to be done to ensure that when all is fully configured, you can automatically start getting visitors when you post content on your website.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive on a global scale and are looking for any and every advantage they can to get better results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage over other competitors. With an expertly configured website, you have a flying start from the moment your website is launched.
Configuration 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 its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to understand the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this here is a story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All was moving along in the gizmo workshop when things ground to a sudden stop.
No one could figure out what is wrong and so the floor manager decided to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert went directly to the main control box. After staring at the electronic components for no more than 3 minutes or so, the expert then produced a little hammer from his utility belt and made a single tap about 3 inches from the right side of the control unit.
Immediately, everything came back to life.
The floor manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager received an invoice for $5,000.
The manager picked up the phone and called the expert, demanding to know why the expert had charged them such a large amount of money for less than 5 minutes work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one on the business had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to be compensated fairly for having spent years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to assess and avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WP blog set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social followers from Facebook and Twitter and dozens of other online properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems is often ridiculously easy once implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than installing a website and configuring a few internal settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get certain functionalities on your site.
- Which services need to be set up and activated to get certain results
- Which options you need to configure in order to ensure that things will function as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a plugin, clicking on a button or two, or configuring some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of many components including your server, your website or blog, and various third-party sites …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the activities 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.
Configuring Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your hosting account that affect how your site will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your site can attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for both bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
After fine-tuning your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to configure various third-party sites or online solutions.
External Accounts
The purpose of adding external sites is that all content gets published from one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it gets distributed automatically to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external services have been added to your traffic system, content linked back to your website is automatically fed to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and business will benefit from additional exposure online, helping your business tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the third-party sites and solutions will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site 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 before configuring your WordPress site:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmasters lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of important information, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site details with Google Search Console, use the account information with 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 website’s traffic results, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
After setting up your account, account data can be integrated with WordPress using a simple Google Analytics plugin and automatically sent to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account and site details with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, use your information with traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained 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 build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, 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 these features into your traffic generation system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need to set up your various social 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 drive new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have accounts set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can You can syndicate your content to lots of social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(There are many social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your website.
There are various platforms that can be added to your web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site
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 key areas.
Global Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have purposely chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(You can 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 traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your site 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 main setting here as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to instantly ping your update services list when new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion
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)
Permalinks
Permalinks enable your site to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks Screen)
Here are some of the ways permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
If you need help setting up WordPress permalinks, see this step-by-step tutorial: Changing Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help your site generate more traffic
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with the effects of 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, website security is something you simply cannot 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 hackers and bots.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website …
(WP Plugins For SEO – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your site’s SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with others can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing to your website using free or inexpensive plugins)
You can add social sharing features to your website easily with WordPress plugins.
Most social share plugins let you choose which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to protect content which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring Settings – WP Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring layout and design elements of your site, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure settings and options for better traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your content is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Configuring Additional WordPress Sections
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site 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 seriously affect your business as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website stays compliant with all legal requirements.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog, go here:
Post Categories & Tags
Tags and categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your web pages.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s categories and tags during the Website Planning Stage.
When considering ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
Add A Site Map
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications discover more of your web content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although Google can 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 results in increased traffic.
Your Site’s 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching for your site type in the wrong web address or click on a link pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they will typically be greeted with an error – page not found message …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up in your web server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to start generating traffic is publish content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform this process typically takes many website professionals months 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 covered in the next section of the 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 website owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively and drive traffic sustainably with a WordPress website and proven web marketing methods.
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