Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
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 automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to begin bringing web traffic is publish great content consistently!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase of this process. 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 site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this section, we look at the configuration stage of the traffic automation process. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site so you can get new visitors automatically when you start adding web content on your web site.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as their greatest challenge online. With business becoming ever more competitive worldwide, it’s worth exploring any advantage available to improve your performance online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage over the competition. Having an expertly configured WordPress site gives your business a flying start and an immediate competitive advantage online.
The Configuration Phase Is 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 a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here is a simple way to understand the difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this point here’s a little story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Things are going just fine in the widget factory when suddenly, production grinds to a halt.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrives and, without saying a word, immediately walks towards the control box. After staring silently at the schematics for what seems like 2 minutes or less, the expert then takes out a teeny-weeny hammer and makes a gentle tap near the right-hand edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything starts working again.
The manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Bewildered and confused, the factory manager rings the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them so much for less than 5 minutes work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive new visitors to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one in the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to demand fair compensation for years spent building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a web site fully set up so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social followers from sites like Facebook and Twitter and dozens of other web properties would be automatically 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 site?)
While the solution to many challenges is often ridiculously easy in hindsight, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring some basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party services you need to set up and activate to get certain outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure to make sure things work as expected, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved and time-consuming. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a piece of software, clicking a button, or tweaking some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of different components including your web server, your site, and a number of external sites or online services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic you can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like implementing server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
Once your server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and services.
3rd-Party Accounts
The idea behind setting up external sites is that all of your content gets published to a central location (your site) and from there, it gets automatically distributed to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external platforms to your network, content pointing back to your website will get automatically added to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social networks, even to users of the platform itself. Your website receives exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings to help speed up the process 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 WordPress settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with useful information, SEO tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account with Google, use this information with web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up Google Analytics, you can add visitor tracking information to all of your web pages in WordPress using a plugin and feed data automatically to various other online applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account and entering site data, 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.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, 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 build a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your web traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need to set up your various social media accounts 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 pages and drive new traffic to your site.
Set up accounts and profile pages with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are many social sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick the ones that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(There are lots of social sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging web platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add an RSS feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own RebelMouse account.
There are various technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
The WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, this section displays only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section and WordPress takes care of 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 Settings
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 web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your site to get 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 traffic is concerned, however, the main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to instantly ping all the update services you have listed in the Update Services area whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion Settings
Although this section is mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to sites 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 Section)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your site’s permalink URLs …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
If you need help setting up permalinks, see this tutorial: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
WordPress Traffic Plugins – Configuration
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins with features that help to 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 dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is completely safe from being attacked.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to attacks from hackers and bots.
More information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving improving the way search engines like Google and Bing find and index your website …
(Yoast SEO – WP Plugin)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing features to your site using free or inexpensive plugins)
You can easily add social sharing to your website with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social share plugins let you specify 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 followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring Settings – WordPress Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your traffic.
For example, as well as 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 navigation structure for better indexing, add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you make money online, it’s important that your site complies with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, see this article:
WordPress Post Categories & Tags
Tags and categories help search engines better classify and index your website, which helps you get more traffic.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your website.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post categories and tags should be set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites find your site’s content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Configure Your WordPress 404 Page Not Found
When visitors type in the wrong URL or click on hyperlinks pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they will typically be greeted with an error page (known as a 404 page) …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your web server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your website or blog expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do to attract more web traffic is publish great content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many web professionals months to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is covered in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part Three
To continue reading, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic automatically with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy and quick to implement.
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