Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new 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 web site, all you have to do to automatically begin attracting more traffic is publish great content consistently!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this section of the series, we discuss the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. You will understand what makes an expertly configured site different from a professionally configured site. You will also learn what kind of work needs to be done to ensure that when all is set up and fully configured, you can drive new traffic automatically simply by publishing fresh content on your site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business getting so much more competitive worldwide, it’s worth exploring every advantage available to get better results online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage. For businesses, an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start as soon as their site is launched.
The Configuration Process Is What Makes All The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website 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 describe the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Let me illustrate this point with an amusing story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All is moving along in the widget-making plant when everything comes to a sudden stop.
As no one can figure out what’s gone wrong, the plant manager decides to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert walks immediately to the control box. After staring at the box for less than 5 minutes or so, the expert then produces a teeny-weeny hammer from his pocket and makes a single tap about 2 inches from the left edge of the control unit.
Immediately, the machinery starts working again.
The floor manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just 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.
Puzzled and confused, the factory manager picks up the phone and calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged such a large amount of money for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving web traffic to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for years spent developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to quickly avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WordPress site configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social sites like Facebook and Twitter and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems is often quite simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring some basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to add various functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party services you need to set up and activate to achieve certain outcomes
- Which options you need to configure in order to ensure that things will work as expected, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite involved. This is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a solution, clicking a button, or configuring some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of a number of different parts including your server, your WP site, and a number of third-party sites and online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart 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 brief look at these areas.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes. What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your site may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like implementing server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites and services.
3rd-Party Sites
The concept behind adding external sites is that all of your content should be published from one central location (your site) and from there, be distributed automatically to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external sites have been added to your traffic system, content linking back to your website is automatically posted to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social sites, even to users of the platform itself. Your site will be given additional exposure to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of the external sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your site’s settings 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 site’s settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with essential information, tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account, this information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings 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 traffic results, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
After setting up your up your Google Analytics account and site data has been entered, you can add traffic monitoring information to all of your web pages in WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and send data instantly to various other useful applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account, you can use your details to integrate and automate web traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers users a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional online presence.
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 at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic 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 accounts and bring new visitors to your site.
You should set up accounts and profile pages with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select those that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add a feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your own RebelMouse website.
There are various platforms you can incorporate into your own web traffic system. 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 third-party site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress Site Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
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 set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains an important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Screen)
As stated in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally 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 field
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is listed …
(Update Services)
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 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 Settings
This section affects how visitors will see your content 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 feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site 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 traffic is concerned, however, the main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly ping the 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 Section)
Discussion
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 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your permalink URLs …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, see this step-by-step tutorial: Setting Up WordPress Permalinks
Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add almost every type of functionality to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No website is completely immune from being attacked by hackers.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and bots.
For more details, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(WP Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with their 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 features to your website easily using WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website using WordPress plugins.
Most social share plugins allow you to select which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress Theme Features – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring layout and design aspects of your website, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Additional Areas To Configure For Improved Traffic Results
Last (but by no means least) in the WordPress traffic blueprint configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwelcome 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 business online, it’s important that your website is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
We have written a detailed article on the importance of having a legally compliant website here:
Post Categories And Tags
WordPress post tags & categories help search engines index your web pages, which helps to increase traffic.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your website.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your site’s categories and tags during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories that have been set up.
Add A Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications discover your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although search engines like Google can index your site just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When visitors searching online for your website type in the wrong web address or click on a link pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they will normally be presented with a 404 error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you then need to do is post fresh content consistently to automatically start generating web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different components and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some web developers a long time to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is addressed in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This article is part of an tutorial series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online with a WordPress-driven website and proven marketing methods that are easy to implement.
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