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 WordPress.
In Part One of this 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 website, all you have to do is post content consistently to begin bringing traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing website was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will discuss the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured to ensure that new web traffic will automatically start flowing simply by posting new content regularly on your site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive and are exploring any advantage they can to improve their results and performance online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous competitive advantage. With an expertly configured website, you have a significant competitive advantage from the word “go”.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to explain the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take additional labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
To illustrate this here is an amusing anecdote.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All is going fine in the widget-making assembly line when all of a sudden, things grinds to a stop.
As no one can figure out what’s happened, the manager decides to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately goes to the control box. After staring at the electronic components for about 5 minutes or so, the expert then takes out a tiny little hammer from his shirt pocket and makes a single tap about two cm from the bottom-left corner of the control unit.
Immediately, everything springs back to life.
The plant manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager receives an invoice for $5,000.
Angrily, the factory manager rings the expert. Why were they charged so much for so little time delivering such minimal amount of work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive visitors to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for years spent building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WP blog set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other online properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
While experts often make difficult things look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to work things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring site settings for clients. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to add certain functionalities to your site.
- Which services you need to set up to get specific results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to make sure everything works to plan, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite involved. It’s not just about installing a solution, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area or clicking a button … it’s all of this and so much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of many different components such as your web server, your WordPress site, and various third-party sites and online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If all the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplified diagram of the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved in more detail.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for installation purposes. What we are talking about, is configuring settings and options in your web-hosting account that affect how you will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your website may attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
After your web server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step is to configure various third-party sites.
External Sites
The basic concept of choosing external sites is that all content will be posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it will radiate outwards automatically to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external platforms have been added to your traffic system, content linking back to your website will get automatically added to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social networks, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your site will then be exposed to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some third-party sites will need to be 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 WordPress site:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmasters lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with essential data, tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your Google Webmasters account, use your information with web traffic-related 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 performance, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data are set up, you can add traffic monitoring information to WordPress via a plugin and send data instantly to other applications and web properties.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account and site details are set up, this information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) 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 option if you plan to grow a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic generation system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media pages and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social media and social bookmarking accounts before you can integrate these with 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 get new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have accounts set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can You can post your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose the ones that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add an RSS feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your own RebelMouse page.
There are various platforms that can be incorporated into your web traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Configuring WordPress Settings
Your WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains an important and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As described in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(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 readers 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 content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site to read the rest of the content from a partial feed, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting here as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly notify various update services when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(Global 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)
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 site’s search-friendly URLS …
(Configuring permalinks)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using WP permalinks here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress – Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every type of functionality to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
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 website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what kind 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 website security.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
More info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive 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 website’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find and index, it also lets you specify how to display your content in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing your 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 provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website using WordPress plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Many social plugins allow you to choose which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress – Traffic Generation Theme Features
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your website, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your content is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
Other Configuration Aspects For WordPress
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 Compliance 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 start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
To learn more about why it’s important to have a compliant website, refer to this article:
WordPress Post Categories & Tags
Post tags & categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your pages.
(Post categories help search engines index your website, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s post tags and post categories should be discussed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
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 results.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
A site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover more of your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although search engines like 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.
Don’t Forget Your Site’s 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching online for your website enter the wrong web address into their browser or click on hyperlinks pointing to pages on your site that no longer exist, they will typically be presented with an error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
A 404 Not Found page can be configured into a useful source of traffic to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then is publish new content consistently to generate web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The expertise required to perform the configuration process typically takes many web developers months to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of an article series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business and drive traffic organically using a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven online marketing methods.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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