Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive visitors automatically to your site using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is add fresh content on a regular basis to generate more web traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at critical setup decisions. 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 site, and what to do if your existing site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured in order to ensure that new web traffic will automatically start flowing just by publishing fresh content to your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive worldwide and are researching any advantage they believe will improve their performance and results online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage over the competition. For business owners, having an expertly configured website means having a significant advantage from the very start.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s a simple way to understand the key difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get 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 system!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All is going well in the gizmo-making factory when things suddenly stop working.
As no one can figure out what went wrong, the plant manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert walks directly towards the control box. After staring silently at the board for less than 2 minutes, the expert then produces a teensy-weensy hammer and makes a single tap near the left-hand corner of the control unit.
Immediately, everything begins working as before.
The manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager receives a request of payment for services for the sum of $5,000.
Angry and bordering on a sense of outrage, the manager dials the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them such an exorbitant fee for less than five minutes work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for having invested years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to immediately avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a site set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other traffic-generating 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 driving traffic to your site?)
Although the solution to many challenges often seems ridiculously simple once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which third-party accounts you need to set up to achieve specific results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to ensure that things will function as expected, etc.
(Driving web 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 complicated. This is because it’s not just about installing a plugin, tweaking some settings in your dashboard area or clicking a button … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your web server, your web site, and various external sites and services …
(The configuration phase 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 diagram of the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings in your web hosting account that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your site can attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like configuring server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites and services.
3rd-Party Sites Integration
The idea behind adding external sites is that all of your content will get published to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After incorporating these external sites into your traffic network, content linking back to your site will get automatically added to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your site will then receive exposure online, helping you tap into new sources of traffic.
Some sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your settings 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’s settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with important information, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site data have been set up, this information can be used to automate 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 site’s performance, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your up your account and entered your site details, you can add tracking code to all of your web pages in WordPress using a plugin and feed data instantly to other applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account and entering site details, this information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. 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 a number of useful 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 this into your automated traffic system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social accounts in order to 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 and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts and profiles with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up and post your content to. 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 many social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging technology platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add an RSS feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your website.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your own traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Site Configuration
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 of the important areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress administration area includes a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(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 or your webmaster have specifically chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of update services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, this section lists only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list of update services to this section …
(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 visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or 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 in this section as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to notify all the update services you have listed whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion
Although this section is mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to blogs linked to from your articles, 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)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks Screen)
Here are some of the options for configuring your site’s permalink URLs …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that improve traffic generation
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of securing your web sites.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to botnets and hackers.
For more details, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages easy for search engines to find and index …
(WordPress SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find, classify and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social features to your site easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Many social sharing 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 shares), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting 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, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a free theme) come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing features to your site is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features)
Other Configuration Aspects For WordPress Traffic
Last (but by no means least) in the configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can damage your business as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do business online, it’s important that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress site, refer to this article:
WordPress Post Categories & Tags
Post categories and post tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your pages.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your web pages.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s tags and categories should be discussed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the tags and categories that have been set up.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A visitor site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites find your website content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. HTML site maps provide readers with a an understandable map of how your content is structured, while XML sitemaps are mostly just a bunch of code that only search bots can read. Although Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Your 404 Page Not Found
When online visitors type in the wrong URL or click on a link pointing to a page on your website that no longer exists, they are greeted with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 error page) …
(A 404 Error Page)
A 404 Not Found error page can be configured to funnel visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up on your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then to start generating more traffic is publish web content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different components and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some website developers months to acquire.
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 explained in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help small business owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively and drive traffic sustainably using a WordPress-driven website and proven online marketing methods.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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