Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic generating machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is publish content consistently to begin attracting web traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to start 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 website was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this article, we look at the configuration stage of the traffic automation process. The focus of this section is to help you understand what makes an expertly configured site different, and how much work needs to be done to make sure that when all is fully set up and configured, you can get new visitors automatically as you begin publishing fresh content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
The ability 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 competition becoming increasingly more difficult businesses are exploring any advantage they believe will help them improve their performance online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage over the competition. With an expertly configured WordPress site, your business has an immediate competitive advantage from the very beginning.
The Configuration Stage Is What Makes The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s a simple way to explain the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing anecdote.
A Semi-True Story …
All is going well in the widget factory when everything suddenly stops.
As no one can figure out what’s gone wrong, the manager decides to call in an expert.
The expert arrives soon afterwards and, without saying a word, walks straight towards the control box. After staring silently at the board for less than 3 minutes, the expert then takes out a teensy-weensy hammer and makes a gentle tap near the left corner of the unit.
Immediately, everything in the assembly plant begins working as before.
The manager is greatly relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager receives a request of payment for services totalling $5,000.
Bewildered, the manager dials the expert. Why had they had been charged so much for so little time delivering such minimal amount of work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive 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 factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to be compensated fairly for years spent building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly repair a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a website set up so all you 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 immediately notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems may seem ridiculously simple once implemented, 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 requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services you need to set up and activate to get desired results
- Which options you need to configure in order to ensure that everything will work as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved. It’s not as easy as installing a solution, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of many parts such as your web server, your site, and a number of third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we create a simple diagram of the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings in your server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, 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 web traffic your business will attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for good and unwanted traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like implementing server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these, the next step is to configure various external sites and online solutions.
External Sites
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all content should be published to one central location (your site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external services have been added to your setup, content linking back to your website is automatically published on these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social networks, even to users of the platform itself. Your content and website benefits from increased exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.
Some third-party sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site’s settings to help speed up the configuration process and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of essential data, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account with Google Webmaster Tools have been set up, you can use the details to integrate and automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data have been set up, traffic tracking information can be added to all pages in WordPress using a plugin used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account with Bing, use this information to automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers users a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, 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 these features into your automated 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 to set up your social 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 sites and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and profiles set up with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose the ones that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online web platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, 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 – Distribute your content to social networks)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse account.
There are many different solutions that can be incorporated into your 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.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(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 have intentionally configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services box
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section includes only one entry …
(Update Services)
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 Settings
This section affects how your content gets seen by visitors 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 readers and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your site to view the rest of the content from a partial feed, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to automatically ping all the update services you have listed when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(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 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings enable WordPress to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks Section)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your permalinks …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: How To Configure WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is guaranteed immunity from being attacked by hackers.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to hackers and bots.
Go here for more info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(WordPress SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your website’s SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines to index, it also lets you specify how to display your content in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with their social networks can help to increase 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 website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website using 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 post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress Traffic Theme Settings – Configuration
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 the design and layout of your site, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons to your website is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Additional Features To Configure
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwanted traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of business online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
For a detailed article about how to quickly add legal pages to your website, see this article:
WordPress Post Categories & Tags
Categories and post tags help search engines index your website, which helps you get more traffic.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s post tags and post categories during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
Add A Site Map
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, while an XML sitemap is mostly filled with code that only search bots can read. Although Google will index your site 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 Page – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When online visitors type in the wrong URL or click on a dead link, they are presented with a 404 Not Found error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up on your web server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do is add new content on a consistent basis to automatically drive more traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of skills and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some web professionals months 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 our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic organically using a WordPress website and proven online marketing strategies.
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