Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new traffic automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to automatically begin bringing more web traffic is publish content consistently!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to get started 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 using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic system. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site to automatically drive web traffic just by posting new content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business getting so much more competitive, it’s worth exploring every advantage that can help you increase your own competitiveness online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge advantage over the competition. For businesses, an expertly configured website means having a significant competitive advantage from the very start.
The Difference Is In The Configuration Stage
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here’s a simple way to describe the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence plus an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
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.
Let me illustrate this point with a little story.
Knowing Where To Tap
All was going well in the gizmo-making assembly line when all of a sudden, things stopped working.
No one could figure out what happened and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert.
The expert arrived shortly after being summoned and, without uttering a word, immediately headed towards the main control box. After staring silently at the board for no more than 3 minutes, the expert then took out a teeny-weeny hammer from his shirt pocket and made a very gentle tap about three cm from the bottom-right edge of the box.
Immediately, everything sprang to life.
The manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received a request of payment for services totalling $5,000.
The factory manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged such a ludicrous fee for less than 5 minutes work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors to their sites.
How much money did the factory stand to lose when the machines stopped working and no one on the business was able to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for having invested years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to fix a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WP web site set up and configured so all you have to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other web properties would be automatically 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 the solution to many problems can seem ridiculously simple once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than just installing a website and configuring some basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services need to be set up and activated to get desired results
- Which options need to be configured to make sure things work to plan, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite involved and time-consuming. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a plugin, configuring some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your web server, your WP site, and a number of third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine what’s involved in more detail.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web-hosting account 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 business may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for good and unwanted traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like implementing server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to configure a number of external sites.
External Accounts
The purpose of adding external sites is that all content will get published from one central location (your site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external sites have been added to your traffic network, content linked back to your website gets automatically syndicated to these platforms. Your content and website will receive additional exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.
Some of the third-party sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site 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 Webmasters
(Google Webmasters)
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 essential data, SEO tools and reports about your website.
Once your account and site details with Google have been set up, the details can be used with traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details are set up, visitor tracking code can be added to all of your web pages in WordPress via plugins used with other applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account is with Bing are set up, your details can be used to integrate and automate web traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan 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 with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features 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 and social bookmarking accounts and get new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media accounts in order to 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 drive new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and pages set up with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(There are loads of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
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 displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse page.
There are various sites and platforms that can be added to your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website For Traffic
The first step in configuring your 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
Your WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Settings Menu – 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 purposely chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section displays only one entry …
(Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(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
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 influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to view 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 traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly ping all the update services you have listed whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, do not check this box …
(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 blogs 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your site’s permalink URLs …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
If you need help setting up WordPress permalinks, see this tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to attract more visitors to your site
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is immune from a cyber-attack.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
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 and Bing to index …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by improving your website’s SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, crawl 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 GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social features to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social sharing plugins allow you to select which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress Traffic Theme Features – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring design and layout aspects of your site, some themes also provide options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Configuring Other Features Of WordPress
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you do business online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your site complies with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
To learn more about the importance of having a compliant website, see this article:
Post Tags & Categories
WordPress categories and tags help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s post categories and tags should be discussed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phases.
When configuring your site to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags that have been set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications find your site’s content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. HTML site maps provide readers with a logical map of how your content is organized, whereas XML sitemaps are mostly code that only search engines can read. Although Google can index your pages just using 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.
404 Page – An Additional Source Of Traffic!
When visitors searching online for your website enter the wrong web address or click on a dead link, they are presented with a 404 error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
A 404 page can be turned into a useful source of traffic to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your site expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do to generate web traffic is add content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of skills and knowledge required to perform the configuration stage of the traffic automation process typically takes many web 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 section of our WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Part 3
To continue reading about this topic, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping business owners learn how to grow their business with a WordPress-driven website and proven marketing methods that are easy and quick to implement.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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