Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is post great content regularly to generate more web traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will look at the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. We explain what makes an expertly configured site different, and just what kind of work is required to ensure that when everything is set up and fully configured, you can automatically drive new traffic just by consistently publishing new content on your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business becoming ever more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth looking into every advantage that can help you get better results online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage over the competition. For businesses, having an expertly configured website means having an immediate competitive advantage from the very beginning.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a significant 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 is a simple way to describe the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this point here is a joke.
A Semi-True Story …
All was humming along in the widget assembly line when everything ground to a sudden stop.
As no one could figure out what went wrong, the floor manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert headed out immediately to the control box. After staring silently at the wires and circuitry for less than 3 minutes, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy hammer and made a gentle tap near the top-left corner of the control unit.
Immediately, the plant sprang back to life.
The plant manager was filled with joy as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received an invoice for $5,000.
The manager called 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 then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving new visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for years spent developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress website or blog configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other 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 challenges can seem quite easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to figure 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! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts need to be set up and activated to achieve certain results
- Which options need to be configured to ensure that processes will run as envisioned, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite involved and time-consuming. It’s not as easy as installing one or two plugins, tweaking some settings in your admin area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of different components including your server, your website or blog, and various external sites and online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we create a simplified flowchart showing all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified diagram of the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a better look at these areas.
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 that affect how you will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your website may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like configuring spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites.
External Accounts
The idea behind setting up external sites is that all content should be published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will automatically get syndicated to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external sites have been added to your setup, content linking back to your website gets automatically added to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and website will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your settings to help 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 before configuring your WordPress site’s settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential data, tools and reports about your website.
Once your Google Webmaster Tools account and site details are set up, this information can be used with web 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 website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data have been set up, account information can be integrated with WordPress via any of several Google Analytics plugins and and fed to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account and entering site data, use this information with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers users a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your traffic generation system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social media and social bookmarking accounts 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 and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have set up profiles with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social sites you can You can post 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 system and/or content sharing tools (we discuss some of these tools in greater detail in the Automation phase).
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online web platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add an RSS feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute your content to social networks)
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 website.
There are various technologies and third-party applications you can add to your own web traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Screen)
As described in this 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, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services text area
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section contains only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post 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 readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog 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 traffic is concerned, however, the most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to ping various update services 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 …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Section)
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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow your site to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your SEO-friendly URLs …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
If you need help setting up WP permalinks, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring Settings – Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with 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, you simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your website or blog.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and botnets.
For more details, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your web pages …
(Yoast SEO – WP SEO Plugin)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages 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 GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with members of their social networks can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social features to your site with free or inexpensive plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Most social share plugins allow you to select 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 shares), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which users can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress 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, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) include built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Sections
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Legal Web 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 bad traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you are making money online, you need to make sure that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?)
To learn more about why it’s important to have a legally compliant website, go here:
Post Tags & Categories
Post tags and categories help search engines better classify and index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s categories and tags should be set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the tags and categories you have set up.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools find more of your web content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial 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 engine bots can read. Although Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Configure Your Site’s 404 Page Not Found
When visitors enter the wrong URL into their web browser or click on hyperlinks pointing to pages on your site that no longer exist, they will typically be greeted with a 404 Not Found page …
(A 404 Page)
A 404 Not Found page can be configured to funnel visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you then need to do is post new content on a consistent basis to start attracting traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration process can take many web developers months to acquire.
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 explained in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help site owners learn how to grow their business with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy to implement.
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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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