Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is publish new content consistently to automatically start attracting traffic!)
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 using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this section, we will discuss the configuration phase of the traffic system. We will show you what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different than a professionally configured site. You will also understand what type of work is required to make sure that when everything is fully set up and configured, traffic will automatically start flowing as you begin posting new content on your website.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive and are exploring any advantage they believe will increase their competitiveness online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage. For businesses, an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start as soon as their website is launched.
The Configuration Phase Is What Makes The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to describe the difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this point here’s a joke.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All was going fine in the gizmo-making assembly line when all of a sudden, everything just stopped.
No one could figure out what has gone wrong and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert.
The expert arrived shortly afterwards and walked immediately towards the main control box. After staring silently at the wiring diagrams for 3 minutes or less, the expert then took out a teeny-weeny hammer from his pocket and made a single tap about 1 cm from the right corner of the box.
Immediately, everything sprang to life.
The plant manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager received an invoice for $5,000.
The manager rang back the expert, demanding to know why the expert had charged them so much for so little time delivering such a minimal amount of work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrived in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The #1 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 factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for investing years developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WP web site set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other web properties would be automatically 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 can seem quite easy once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than simply installing a website and configuring some basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which services you need to set up and activate to get specific outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured in order to ensure that everything will work to plan, etc.
(Generating new 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 difficult, it can be quite involved and time-consuming. It’s not as simple as installing a solution, configuring some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your server, your WP site, and various third-party sites and services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we create a simple diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration process)
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 website installation purposes. What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your website will attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like configuring spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
After your web server settings have been checked and configured, the next step is to configure a number of third-party sites and/or online solutions.
Third-Party Sites Configuration
The idea behind setting up external sites is that all of your content will be posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it will be distributed automatically to other parts of your 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 gets automatically posted to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and site will be exposed to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some of these sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site to speed up the process 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 Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with important information, SEO tools and reports about your website.
Once your Google Search Console account and site data are set up, you can use this information to integrate and automate traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s performance, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account, you can add traffic monitoring information to WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data automatically to various other applications and web properties.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account with Bing, you can use your information with web traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your 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 get new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social media accounts before you can configure these as part of 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 bring new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts and profile pages with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can You can syndicate your content to loads of social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick those that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we will cover some of these tools in greater detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add a feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your page.
There are various sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Global WordPress Settings
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and often overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Area)
As described in the Update Services 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 update services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section contains only one entry …
(WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services 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
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 traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site to read 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 your traffic system is concerned, however, the main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to instantly notify various update services whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion
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 blogs 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 Screen)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the ways your SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, see this step-by-step tutorial: Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
Configuring Settings – WP Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, web security is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to bots and hackers.
More information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web content easier for search engines to index …
(WP Plugins For SEO – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing features to your site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site using WordPress plugins.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to choose 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 visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress Theme Features
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, many themes also provide options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With many themes, adding social sharing buttons to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Additional Configuration Steps For Your WordPress Site
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you are making money online (or plan to), it’s important that your site stays compliant with all government laws and regulations.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, go here:
WordPress Categories & Tags
WordPress categories and tags help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.
(Categories help search engines better organize and index your website, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your website’s post tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Phases.
When considering ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits and results.
HTML Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover more of your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Only search engines can read an XML sitemap. Although Google can index your site just using 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.
404 Page – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When online visitors type in the wrong web address or click on a link pointing to a destination on your website that no longer exists, they are presented with an error page …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to funnel traffic to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover 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 Automation System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then is publish fresh content on a consistent basis to automatically drive traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The skills and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many web developers a long time to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is covered in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of an article series designed to help business owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively using a WordPress website and proven online marketing strategies.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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