Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive visitors automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to begin bringing new traffic is publish new content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase of the automation process. 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 website was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this article, we look at the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to automatically attract web traffic simply by regularly adding web content to your website.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – 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 business becoming so much more competitive worldwide, it’s worth learning about every advantage that can help you improve your results online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge advantage over other competitors. With an expertly configured website, your business has a significant advantage from the very beginning.
The Difference Is In The Configuration Stage
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to explain the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you 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 does it take extra work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All was humming along in the gizmo assembly plant when all of a sudden, production came to a complete stop.
No one could figure out what has happened and so the manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert immediately headed towards the control box. After staring silently at the box for what seemed like 2 minutes or so, the expert then produced a little hammer from his pocket and made a gentle tap about 1 inch from the top-left corner of the unit.
Immediately, everything started working again.
The manager was delighted as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager received an invoice for $5,000.
The manager picked up the phone and called the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged so much for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive new visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for having invested years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately assess and fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your website set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social media and dozens of other online properties would be instantly 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 website?)
Although many experts often make difficult things look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves 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 to add certain functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party services you need to set up to achieve desired outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure to ensure that things will function as envisioned, etc.
(Generating web 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 involved and complicated. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing and configuring one or two plugins, clicking a button … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your server, your WordPress site, and a number of external sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for site 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 …
(In the configuration phase, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your website may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like implementing server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up 404 error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and services.
External Sites And Solutions – Configuration
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all of your content will be published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will syndicate automatically to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you incorporate these external services into your traffic network, content pointing back to your website gets automatically fed to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social networks, even to users of the platform itself. Your content will then be exposed to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your site to 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:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console)
Google Search Console lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with essential data, SEO tools and reports about your website.
Once your Google Search Console account is set up, use the account information to automate web traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic results, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, traffic monitoring information can be added to WordPress via plugins 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 Webmaster Tools. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account and site data are set up, you can use this information to automate traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers users the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which various 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 traffic generation system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new traffic to your site)
You will need to set up your social media and social bookmarking accounts in order to integrate these with your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts and profile pages with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can You can post your content to lots of social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add a feed from your WordPress blog …
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 website.
There are many different sites and platforms you can incorporate into your web 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 site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website
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 key areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
Your WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains an important and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically configured your site settings 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, when WordPress is installed, this section includes only one entry …
(WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically …
(Notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
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 on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content 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 content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to get the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting in this section as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to automatically notify the list of 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 Screen)
Discussion Settings
Although the settings in this section 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings Screen)
The examples below show some of the ways post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks here: Changing WordPress Permalinks
WP Traffic Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help improve traffic generation
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, web security is something you cannot ignore.
(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 attacks from hackers and botnets.
Go here to learn more:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages easy for search engines like Google to index …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your site’s SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to index, it also lets you specify how to present your content in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with their networks can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site using free or inexpensive plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Most social share plugins allow you to specify which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to protect content which users can unlock by liking your page.
Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, some themes also include built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With many themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure For Improved Traffic Flow
Last (but by no means least) in the WordPress traffic system configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle 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 business online, it’s important that your website is compliant with all government legal requirements.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?)
To learn more about how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog, go here:
Tags And Post Categories
Categories & post tags help search engines better organize and index your website, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your web pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your website’s post categories and tags during the Website Planning Stage.
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 Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications find your site’s content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although search engines like 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 results in increased traffic.
Don’t Forget Your 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching for your site enter the wrong web address or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they will typically be presented with a 404 error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to funnel traffic to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up in your server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do is add new content consistently to automatically begin bringing more web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of skills and expertise required to perform the configuration process typically takes some website developers a long time to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of an tutorial series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively with a WordPress-driven website and proven online marketing methods.
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