Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new traffic automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to automatically start driving web traffic is add great content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we focused on critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to start 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 website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. We will explain why an expertly configured WordPress site is different. You will also understand how much work is required to make sure that when all is set up and fully configured, you will get web traffic automatically when you add new content on your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With competition becoming progressively tougher businesses are exploring any and every advantage they can that can help you improve their performance online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand is a tremendous competitive advantage. With an expertly configured website, your business has an immediate advantage from the very start.
The Configuration Process Is What Makes All The Difference
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 its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to understand the key difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
To illustrate this here’s a joke.
A Semi-True Story …
All was running smoothly in the widget-making factory when all of a sudden, all machinery stopped.
As no one could figure out what happened, the plant manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and headed out immediately to the control box. After staring silently at the wires and circuitry for 2 minutes, the expert then took out a little hammer from his tool box and made a single tap about two inches from the right edge of the box.
Immediately, every machine came back to life.
The manager was relieved as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged so much for less than 5 minutes work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived and was placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when the machines stopped working and no one on the factory floor was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to ask to be compensated fairly for having invested years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to quickly repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress web site set up and configured so all you had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other web properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
While many experts often make difficult things look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add various functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts you need to set up and activate to get specific results
- Which settings you need to configure to ensure that everything will function as planned, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. It’s not as easy as installing and configuring a piece of software, clicking a button … it’s all of this and so much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your web server, your WordPress site, and various third-party sites or online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved.
Configuring Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for website installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your web server that affect how your website will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your 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 business can attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwanted traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like integrating spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After your server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites.
External Sites
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all content will get published from one central location (your site) and from there, it will get distributed automatically to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external services to your configuration, content with links pointing back to your website will get automatically fed to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and business will be exposed to a new audience and new sources of traffic.
Some external sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress 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:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of essential data, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account has been with Google are set up, you can use this information to automate web traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic results, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
After setting up your account, traffic tracking information can be integrated with WordPress using a plugin used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account and site details have been set up, you can use the details to integrate and automate traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers both the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your traffic generation system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media pages and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social media accounts set up before you can 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 sites and social bookmarking accounts and get new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have pages set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are many social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools (we discuss some of these tools in greater detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, 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 site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your page.
There are many different solutions you can incorporate into your web traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy 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 settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website Or Blog For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress admin area includes a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains an important and frequently overlooked traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Area)
As stated in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have specifically configured your site settings to prevent 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, only one service is listed …
(WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 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 to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog 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 your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Normally, you want 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, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion
Although discussion settings 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 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 search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your site’s search-friendly URLS …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, see this step-by-step tutorial: Changing Your WordPress Permalinks
Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is safe from cyberattacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to bots and hackers.
Go here to learn more:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help increase traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with their social networks can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to choose which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which users can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress Traffic Theme Settings – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring design and layout elements of your site, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons to your website is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic System – Additional Configuration Areas
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your website remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
For a detailed article on how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your site, see this article:
Tags & Categories
Post tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your website.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your web pages.)
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 Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags that have been set up.
Site Map
A site map that displays all of your posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications discover your website content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, whereas an XML sitemap contains code that only search engines can understand. Although Google will 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 can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Another Source Of Web Traffic!
When visitors searching for your website type in the wrong URL into their browser or click on links pointing to destinations on your website that no longer exist, they are presented with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 error page) …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to funnel traffic to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your server, there are several WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website or blog expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do is add fresh content on a regular basis to begin attracting new traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different components and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many web professionals months to learn.
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 article in our 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 tutorials designed to help business owners learn how to grow their business online with a WordPress website or blog and proven web marketing strategies.
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