Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new traffic automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is add new content regularly to begin attracting web traffic!)
In Part 2, 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 website, and what to do if your existing site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we discuss the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured to drive traffic automatically as you begin to publish web content to your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business getting ever more competitive worldwide, it’s worth exploring any and every advantage available to improve your own performance online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage over other competitors. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website means having a significant advantage from the word “go”.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here’s one 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 professional web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does it take more labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Let me illustrate this with a little story.
A Semi-True Story …
Everything is moving along in the widget assembly line when things come to a sudden stop.
No one can figure out what’s gone wrong and so the manager decides to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert walks immediately towards the control box. After staring at the wiring board for no more than 3 minutes or so, the expert then takes out a teensy-weensy hammer and makes a very gentle tap about two cm from the right corner of the control unit.
Immediately, everything springs back to life.
The plant manager is greatly overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Bordering on outrage, the manager dials the expert. Demanding to know why they have been charged so much for less than five minutes work, he then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic consistently to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to be compensated fairly for investing years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a site fully set up so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other traffic-generating online 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 driving traffic to your website?)
Although many experts often make difficult things look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to get certain functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party services you need to set up and activate to achieve desired results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to make sure everything works as envisioned, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. This is because it’s not just about installing a plugin, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all of this and so much more.
The configuration stage is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your WP site, and a number of third-party sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we were to create a simplified diagram of the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your server that affect how your website 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 beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your business may attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like configuring server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up 404 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 checked and configured (if required), the next step is to set up and configure various external sites and services.
External Accounts
The purpose of adding external sites is that all content should be published from one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will automatically be syndicated to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external services to your traffic system, content linked back to your website gets automatically published on search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and website will be given exposure to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of these sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site’s 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 before configuring your WordPress settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential information, SEO tools and reports about your website.
Once your account with Google Search Console have been set up, this information can be used with web traffic settings and notifications 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 traffic results, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your account and site data, visitor tracking information can be added to WordPress via a plugin and and sent to many other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account and entering site details, your information can be used with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, 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 plan to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, 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 this into your web traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need your social media accounts set up before you can 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 set up profiles with all of the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick those that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(There are many social sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Content 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 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 account.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications you can add to your own traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
Configuring Your WordPress Site
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.
Global Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains an important and often overlooked traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated 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, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services field
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section contains only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(You can 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
This section affects how your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your 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.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically ping your list of update services when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
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 sites linked to from your content, 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 Screen)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks Screen)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your SEO-friendly URLs …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, see this step-by-step tutorial: Configuring WordPress Permalinks
Configuring Settings – Plugins
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 some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No web site is completely immune from being attacked by hackers.
(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.
For more details, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web content easier for search engines like Google to index …
(WordPress SEO plugins help increase traffic by making your site more search engine friendly)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines to index, it allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with friends and members of their social networks can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can add social sharing features to your site easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social plugins let you choose 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 likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, some themes also provide built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure options and settings for better traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your site is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Additional Areas Of WordPress To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can cause serious damage to your business as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you do any kind of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
Categories And Post Tags
Post categories and post tags help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your web pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s post tags and categories during the Website Planning Process.
When considering ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Add A Site Map
A 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 find your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but 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), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Don’t Forget Your 404 Page
When visitors searching online for your site type in the wrong URL or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your website that no longer exists, they are greeted with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up in your web server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do is post new content on a regular basis to automatically bring more web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different components and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration phase of the traffic automation process can take some web developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is covered in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress website and proven online marketing strategies.
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