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.
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 website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is add great content on a consistent basis to attract web traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at critical setup decisions. We helped you understand 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 using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we discuss the configuration stage of this process. The focus of this section is to help you understand why an expertly configured site is different. You will also learn what kind of work needs to be done to ensure that when everything is set up and fully configured, you can automatically attract visitors simply by publishing web content on a consistent basis on your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration Phase
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business becoming increasingly more competitive, it’s worth exploring any and every advantage that can help you get better results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge advantage over other competitors. With an expertly configured website, you have an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to describe the main difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
To illustrate this here’s an anecdote.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All is moving along in the widget-making workshop when things suddenly just stop.
As no one can figure out what is wrong, the plant manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert heads directly towards the control box. After staring at the board for 5 minutes, the expert then produces a tiny little hammer and makes a gentle tap near the right edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything comes back to life.
The plant manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager receives an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
Outraged and furious, the manager dials the expert. Demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a large amount of money for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work, he promptly 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 number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to get paid fairly for spending years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a blog set up so all you ever had to do is publish new content and search engines, social networks and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would you save?
(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.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring a few internal settings. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts you need to set up to get certain results
- Which options you need to configure in order to ensure that processes will work to plan, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite involved and time-consuming. It’s not as easy as installing and configuring a plugin, clicking a button, or configuring some settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and so much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of many parts including your web hosting server, your website or blog, and various external sites and services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these areas in more detail.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about configuring settings in your server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web-hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic you may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both good and unwanted traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like integrating server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess and error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
Once your server settings have been checked and configured, the next step is to set up and configure a number of external sites.
External Services
The basic idea of choosing external sites is that all content will get posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it will radiate outwards automatically to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external services have been added to your system, content with links pointing back to your website will be automatically added to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social media accounts, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your content and website will then receive exposure online, helping your business tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the external sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress 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 before configuring your site’s settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with important data, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account and site data with Google Webmasters are set up, the details can be used to integrate and automate traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details have been set up, visitor tracking information can be integrated with WordPress via a plugin used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account with Bing, this information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, 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 article series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive 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 pages and bring new traffic to your site.
You should have pages set up with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can You can syndicate your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(There are loads of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own RebelMouse page.
There are various platforms that can be incorporated into your own web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up third-party site accounts, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
WordPress Traffic 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 points.
Global Settings
By default, your WordPress dashboard area includes a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As described in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have purposely configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
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 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, your choice to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog 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 most important setting here as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to automatically notify the list of update services when 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 unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
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 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 Section)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings enable your site to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the ways your site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Configuring WordPress Permalinks
WordPress Plugins – Configuration
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to 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 dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is completely safe from being attacked.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and bots.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your website’s SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines to find, classify 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 GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with members of their social networks can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing buttons to your site using free or inexpensive plugins)
You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily using free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social plugins allow you to specify which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, some themes also include built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure settings for better traffic results)
With many themes, adding social sharing buttons to your content is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to configure your settings and enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Features For Traffic
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online, it’s important that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
We have written a detailed article about the importance of having a legally compliant website here:
Post Categories & Tags
WordPress post categories and tags help search engines index your website, which helps to increase traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post categories and tags should be 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 you have set up.
Visitor Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts 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 site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: 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, whereas an XML sitemap contains code that only search engines can understand. Although Google can index your pages 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.
404 Error Page – Don’t Forget To Configure It!
When visitors searching online for your website type in the wrong URL or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your website that no longer exists, they are presented with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 error page) …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up on your server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do to begin bringing web traffic is post content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform this process can take some web developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as can be automated. This step is covered in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section 3
To keep reading, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively with a WordPress website and proven marketing strategies that are easy to implement.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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