Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a site into an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this article 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, all you have to do to automatically drive more web traffic is post content regularly!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase. 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 website, and what to do if your existing website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will discuss the configuration stage of this process. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to automatically start attracting web traffic when you begin adding new content to your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Also, the business landscape is becoming ever more competitive on a global scale and businesses are looking for any opportunity they can to get better results online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge competitive advantage. With an expertly configured website, you have a flying start from the moment your site is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to understand the difference:
With a WordPress website 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 a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All was going well in the widget-making factory when the machines suddenly came to a complete stop.
As no one could figure out what happened, the manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert went directly to the control box. After staring at the electronic components for less than 5 minutes or so, the expert then took out a little hammer and made a single tap about 3 cm from the right side of the unit.
Immediately, the assembly line sprang to life.
The floor manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager received an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
The manager called the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged so much for less than 5 minutes work and promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving visitors to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one on the business had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to be compensated fairly for years spent developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to quickly fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a site configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other online properties would be immediately 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 many experts often make complex things look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to work things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party services need to be set up to get certain outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured in order to ensure that things will work as expected, etc.
(Driving 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 time-consuming. This is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a solution, tweaking some settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your web site, and a number of third-party sites and/or online services …
(The configuration phase 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 something like this …
(A simplified diagram of the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these areas.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your server that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your website can attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both good and unwanted traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like implementing server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and services.
External Sites & Solutions – Configuration
The basic concept of setting up external sites is that all of your content will be published from a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will syndicate automatically to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external platforms have been added to your network, content linked back to your website is automatically syndicated to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social networks, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your content will then be given exposure to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of the sites and online services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site to save time and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Webmasters
(Google Search Console)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of useful information, tools and reports about your website.
Once your Google Webmaster Tools account and site data have been set up, use this information to automate 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 performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account and site details, you can add tracking code to WordPress using a simple plugin and send data automatically to various 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 and entering site data with Bing, you can use this information to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers website owners a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated traffic generation system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need your social media and social bookmarking accounts set up before you can configure these as part of 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 get new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have accounts and pages set up with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, 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 syndication tools (we will look at some of these tools in more detail in the Automation phase).
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary-level 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 your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your account.
There are many different platforms you can incorporate into your own web traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a configuration 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 Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress admin area includes a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains an important and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Area)
As described below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have intentionally chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section contains only one entry …
(Writing Settings – WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section …
(You can 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 your content gets seen by visitors 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 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 most important setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly notify all the update services you have listed whenever new posts are 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 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 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 allow you to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways your site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring Settings – WordPress Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every type of functionality to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to increase traffic
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No website is immune from being attacked by hackers.
(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 botnets.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web content more indexable …
(Yoast SEO – WP Plugins For SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your 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 to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website with WordPress plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Many social share plugins let you choose which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring Settings – Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring layout and design aspects of your website, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure options and settings for improved traffic results)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your content is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic System – Additional Configuration Steps
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as 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 stays compliant with all laws and regulations.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
Post Tags & Post Categories
WordPress post tags and post categories help to improve your site’s search optimization, which improves traffic.
(Categories help search engines index your website, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the tags and categories that have been set up.
A Site Map Of Your Pages and Posts
A visitor site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications discover your web content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – Don’t Forget This!
When visitors searching for your website enter the wrong web address or click on a dead link, they will typically be presented with a 404 page …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found page)
A 404 Not Found page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to automatically begin bringing more traffic is publish content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some website professionals months to learn.
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 article in the WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic sustainably with a WordPress-powered website and proven marketing methods that are easy and quick to implement.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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