Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a website into an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this article series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is post web content on a consistent basis to attract web traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the blueprint. We explained the best way to get started 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 existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this article, we look at the configuration phase of the traffic system. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured to bring traffic automatically whenever you add new content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive and are exploring any advantage available to get better results online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can be a huge advantage. With an expertly configured website, you have a flying start and a significant competitive advantage online.
The Difference Is In The Configuration Process
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here’s a simple way to describe the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing anecdote.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Things are going according to schedule in the gizmo-making workshop when suddenly, everything just stops.
No one can figure out what’s gone wrong and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert walks immediately to the main control box. After staring silently at the wires and circuitry for no more than 2 minutes, the expert then produces a little hammer and makes a gentle tap near the right side of the control unit.
Immediately, the assembly line springs to life once again.
The plant manager is delighted as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager receives a request of payment for services for $5,000.
Puzzled and confused, the manager picks up the phone and calls the expert. Why were they charged so much for so little time delivering a minimal amount of work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving traffic to their sites.
How much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the equipment stopped working and no one in the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to get paid fairly for having invested years developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to immediately assess and avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your web site fully set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social media and dozens of other traffic-generating 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 driving traffic to your website?)
Although many experts often make difficult solutions look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few basic settings. It 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 services need to be set up to achieve specific results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure in order to ensure that things will function to plan, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite involved. It’s not just about installing and configuring one or two plugins, configuring some settings in your dashboard area or clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your web hosting server, your website or blog, and a number of third-party sites and/or online services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we create a simplified diagram showing all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the configuration phase)
Let’s examine what’s involved.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings and options in your webhosting account that affect how your site 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 traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your website can attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like configuring server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these, the next step is to configure various external sites.
External Sites
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all content gets published from one central location (your site) and from there, it gets distributed automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external services to your configuration, content linked back to your site gets automatically posted to search, social and aggregator sites. Your site will be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the third-party sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to 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 WordPress site’s settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with useful data, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site details have been set up, use this information to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress 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, search engine and organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, visitor tracking information can be integrated with WordPress via plugins used with other applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account is with Bing have been set up, use this information with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers website owners a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful 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 web traffic generation system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media 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 accounts and drive new visitors to your site.
You should set up accounts and profiles with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can You can syndicate your content to many social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose those that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute your content to social networks)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your account.
There are various platforms that can be added to your own web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
WordPress Site Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
Your WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and frequently overlooked traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As described below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post 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
***
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 on this page can influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up 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 to get the rest of the content from a partial feed, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting in this section as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to instantly ping various update services when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion
Although this section is mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to sites 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)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks Section)
The examples below show some of the ways your permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
If you need help setting up WordPress permalinks, see this step-by-step tutorial: Changing Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help your site generate more traffic
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling 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, website security is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to botnets and hackers.
Go here for more information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving improving how search engines find, classify and index your web pages …
(WordPress Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with their own networks can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site using WordPress plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to specify which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress – Theme Settings
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 design and layout aspects of your website, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a free theme) have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your site is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website is found to comply with all government laws and regulations.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, go here:
Categories & Post Tags
WordPress post tags and categories help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which improves traffic.
(WordPress post categories help search engines index your website, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your site’s post categories and tags during the Website Planning Process.
When considering ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools find more of your site’s content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, whereas an XML sitemap is mostly code that only search bots can read. Although search engines like Google will index your pages 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.
404 Error Page – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When visitors searching for your site enter the wrong web address or click on a dead link, they are greeted with a 404 page …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect 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 inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do is publish new content regularly to begin attracting new web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration stage of the traffic automation process typically takes many website developers months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Part 3
To continue reading, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive tutorial series designed to help you learn how to grow your business and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-powered website and proven web marketing methods.
Get Notified When New WordPress Tutorials Get Published – Subscribe To WPCompendium.org!
***
"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
***