Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to generate traffic is add new content consistently!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the blueprint. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this section, we will discuss the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. The focus of this section is to help you understand what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different. You will also understand how much work needs to be done to ensure that when everything is fully configured, traffic will automatically start flowing when you post new content to your website.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With business becoming increasingly more competitive, it’s worth looking into any and every opportunity you can to improve your performance and results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge competitive advantage. For businesses, an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to understand the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let me illustrate this point with a little story.
A Semi-True Story …
Everything is going well in the gizmo-making factory when things come to a sudden stop.
As no one can figure out what’s happened, the plant manager decides to call in an expert.
The expert arrives within 30 minutes and immediately goes to the control box. After staring silently at the electronic components for 2 minutes, the expert then produces a tiny hammer and makes a single tap near the bottom-right edge of the unit.
Immediately, the assembly line comes back to life.
The plant manager is greatly relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager receives a request of payment for services for the amount of $5,000.
Feeling angry, the factory manager picks up the phone and dials the expert. Why have they had been charged so much for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one in the business had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for spending years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to immediately avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WordPress blog configured so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social media and dozens of other online 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 experts often make difficult situations and problems look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than just installing a website and configuring a few settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which services need to be set up to achieve certain outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured in order to make sure things will function as expected, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing a piece of software, clicking a button, or tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of many components including your server, your site, and various external sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simplified flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine what’s involved.
Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes. What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your web server that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, 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 web traffic your site will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these, the next step is to configure a number of third-party sites and online services.
Integration With External Web Properties
The basic concept of choosing external sites is that all of your content is published from one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it radiates outwards automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external platforms into your traffic network, content linking back to your website will get automatically posted to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and website will be given exposure to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of the external sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress settings 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 Webmasters
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of important data, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account has been with Google are set up, use your details to integrate and automate 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 site’s traffic performance, SEO, marketing activities, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrers, etc.
After setting up your up your Google Analytics account and site data has been entered, you can add tracking code to WordPress using a plugin and feed data automatically to other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account is with Bing are set up, use the information to 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 Two, WordPress offers both 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 business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which various WordPress plugins can access. 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 pages and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social accounts before you can integrate these with 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 attract new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have pages set up with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up. 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.
(You can post your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online web platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, 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 site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your page.
There are various solutions you can incorporate into your web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure WordPress.
Configuring Your WordPress Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Area)
As stated below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services section
By default, this section contains only one entry …
(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 visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an 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 blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to get the rest of the content from excerpts, 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 in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to notify various update services when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings)
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 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)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the options for configuring your permalink URLs …
(Configuring permalinks)
To learn more about setting up WordPress permalinks, go here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
WP Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including many plugins that 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 WordPress site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of website security.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
Go here for more details:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your site more search engine friendly)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your website’s SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with their social networks can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Most social share plugins let you choose which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress – Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring layout and design aspects of your site, some themes also provide options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing features to your site is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Configuring Additional Features Of WordPress For Improved Traffic Flow
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do business online (or plan to), it’s important that your website complies with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
Post Categories & Tags
Post tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your web pages.
(Post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s SEO.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s categories and tags should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Process.
When configuring your website to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags you have set up.
Add A Site Map
A visitor site map that displays all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications find your website content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. HTML site maps provide readers with a visual map of how your content is structured, while XML sitemaps are code that only search bots can read. Although Google can index your site just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Configure Your Site’s 404 Error Page
When visitors enter the wrong URL or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they are greeted with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(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 server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your website fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to drive web traffic is post fresh content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different components and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise required to perform this process typically takes some website professionals months to acquire.
Once you have expertly 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 article in our series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This article is part of an article series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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