Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site 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 generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to start driving traffic is publish fresh content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we discussed critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. We will help you understand what makes an expertly configured site different from a professionally configured one. You will also understand how much work needs to be done to ensure that when all is set up and fully configured, traffic will automatically start flowing when you start publishing content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business getting ever more competitive, it’s worth looking into any advantage available to improve your performance online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage over the competition. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website allows their business to get off to a flying start as soon as their site is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a 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 one way to describe the key difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only is more labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a joke.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All is running smoothly in the gizmo factory when things come to a sudden stop.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert immediately walks to the control box. After staring silently at the board for 3 minutes or less, the expert then produces a tiny little hammer and makes a very gentle tap about 3 cm from the left-hand edge of the control unit.
Immediately, the whole workshop lights up and comes back to life.
The plant manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager receives an invoice for $5,000.
Angry and bordering on a sense of outrage, the factory manager dials the expert. Demanding to know why they have been charged so much for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives and is placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive web traffic to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to get paid fairly for years spent developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WP site configured so all you had to do is publish new content and search engines, social media and dozens of other web properties would be instantly 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 the solution to many problems can seem ridiculously simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than installing a website and configuring settings for clients. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party services need to be set up to get certain results
- Which options need to be configured in order to ensure that processes will work as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite complicated. This is because it’s not as easy as installing a piece of software, tweaking some settings in your admin area or clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase is a process that involves your web hosting server, your WordPress site, and various external sites and/or online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we were to create a simple diagram showing the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine what’s involved.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your website can attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like integrating spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites.
Integration With External Solutions
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all of your content is posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it gets distributed automatically to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After incorporating these external services into your configuration, content with links pointing back to your website gets automatically fed to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social media accounts, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your content and site will benefit from exposure online, helping your business tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the sites and online solutions will need to be set up before configuring your settings to 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 site:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters – 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 important data, tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your Google Webmaster Tools account, use this information to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, visitor tracking information can be easily integrated with WordPress via any of several Google Analytics plugins and instantly sent to many other useful applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account and entering site data with Bing Webmaster Tools, this information can be used to automate traffic-related 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 offers both a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your web traffic system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media Accounts
(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 various social 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 get new traffic to your site.
You should have accounts and profiles set up with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up and post your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick 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 a number of online web platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add a feed from your site …
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 page.
There are various technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
Configuring Your WordPress Site
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – 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 or your webmaster have specifically chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services section
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress will do 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 readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays 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 website 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 your traffic system is concerned, however, the main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to instantly ping your update services list when new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
Although discussion settings 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 posts, 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)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks Section)
Here are some of the options for configuring your permalinks …
(Configuring post permalinks)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add almost every type of functionality to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
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 website or blog is completely immune from a cyber-attack.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to hackers and botnets.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help increase traffic by improving your website’s ability to rank better in search engines)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, classify and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with others online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site using WordPress plugins)
You can add social sharing features to your website easily using WordPress plugins.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to specify which social 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 followers), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Themes
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 layout and design of your website, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) can be configured for better traffic results)
With many themes, adding social sharing buttons to your site is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
Additional Configuration Aspects For Your WordPress Site
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and unwanted traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online, it’s important that your website is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?)
We have created a detailed article on adding legal pages to WordPress here:
Post Categories & Tags
Post tags & categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your web pages.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s tags and categories should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Process.
When considering ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the tags and categories that have been set up.
A Site Map Of Your Pages and Posts
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools find more of your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that 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 can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – Don’t Forget To Configure It!
When online visitors enter the wrong URL into their browser or click on hyperlinks pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they are greeted with a 404 error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
A 404 page can be configured to redirect confused visitors 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 web server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do is add web content on a consistent basis to automatically drive more web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and external web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some website professionals a long time to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help you learn how to grow your business online using a WordPress-powered website and proven web marketing methods.
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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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