Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
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 web site, all you have to do is add fresh content on a regular basis to start driving web traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of this process. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration stage of this process. We will show you how a WordPress site should be configured to automatically begin attracting web traffic as you start to add fresh content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business becoming ever more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth looking into every advantage that can help you get better results online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage over the competition. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here is a simple way to describe the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence plus an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is more work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All was going well in the gizmo-making workshop when everything suddenly stopped working.
As no one could figure out what was wrong, the floor manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert headed out immediately to the control box. After staring silently at the wiring diagrams for no more than 2 minutes or so, the expert then produced a tiny hammer and made a single tap near the right-hand edge of the control unit.
Immediately, everything sprang back to life.
The plant manager was greatly relieved as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager received an invoice for $5,000.
The manager picked up the phone and called the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving new visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production stopped working and no one in the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for spending years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to assess and fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a website set up so all you have to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other online properties would be automatically 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 the solution to many challenges is often ridiculously easy in hindsight, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than just installing a website and configuring a few internal settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to add certain functionalities to your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up to get certain outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure in order to make sure everything works as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a piece of software, clicking on a button or two, or configuring some settings in your admin area … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of different components including your web hosting server, your website, and a number of external sites or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we create a simplified diagram showing all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for site installation purposes. What we are talking about, is configuring settings and options in your server specifically for handling web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web-hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your site may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to configure various third-party sites.
3rd-Party Accounts Integration
The purpose of adding external sites is that all of your content should be published to a central location (your site) and from there, radiate outwards to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external services have been added to your setup, content linked back to your site is automatically posted to these platforms. Your website will then be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the external sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site to help save time 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 settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of useful data, tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your Google Webmasters account, this information can be used to automate web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add traffic tracking information to all of your web pages in WordPress via a simple plugin and send data instantly to other online applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, use the account information to automate 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 users a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your web traffic generation system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need your social media accounts set up in order to integrate these with 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 attract new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we will review some of these tools in greater detail during the Automation phase).
(There are loads of social sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online web 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 your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse page.
There are various solutions you can incorporate into your own web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to 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 site’s settings.
Configuring WordPress For Traffic
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.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains an important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Screen)
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 – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(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
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 traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to get 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 most important setting here as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically ping the update services list when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, do not check this box …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion
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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Permalinks enable WordPress to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the ways your SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress Traffic Generation Plugin Settings – Configuration
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic to your site
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with the effects of 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, securing your websites is something you cannot ignore.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to attacks from hackers and botnets.
To learn more, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving improving how search engines find, classify and index your web pages …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress Plugin)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to index, it also lets you specify how to present your content in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing buttons to your website using WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website with WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins allow you to choose which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which users 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 grow your traffic.
For example, as well as 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 better indexing, easily add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your pages 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)
Configuring Other WordPress Features For More Traffic
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can damage your business as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you make money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?)
We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to WordPress here:
Post Tags & Categories
WordPress post tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your web pages.
(Post categories help search engines index your website, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s post tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags that have been set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover more of your online content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. HTML site maps are web pages that provide visitors with a logical map of how your content is organized, while XML sitemaps contain code that only search engines can interpret. Although search engines like Google will index your site just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Don’t Forget Your Site’s 404 Error Page
When online users type in the wrong web address into their browser or click on hyperlinks pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they are presented with an error page (known as a 404 Not Found page) …
(A 404 Page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured into a useful source of traffic to your functional 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 on your server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do is publish web content on a consistent basis to automatically bring more web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The skills and knowledge involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some web professionals a long time to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help site owners learn how to grow their business using a WordPress-powered website and proven online marketing strategies.
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