Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a site into an automated traffic generation machine using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is add content consistently to drive traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. We helped you understand 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 website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this article, we look at the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to ensure that visitors will automatically start flowing as you begin posting new content consistently on your site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With competition making business survival progressively tougher businesses are looking for any and every opportunity they can to get better results online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge advantage. An expertly configured website gives your business an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here’s a simple way to understand the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence plus an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing little story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All was moving along in the gizmo-making workshop when all of a sudden, things ceased working.
As no one could figure out what happened, the plant manager decided to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert headed immediately towards the control box. After staring silently at the wires and circuitry for less than 2 minutes, the expert then took out a little hammer and made a very gentle tap about two cm from the right-hand side of the box.
Immediately, everything sprang to life once more.
The manager was grateful and relieved as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The manager picked up the phone and dialled the expert, demanding to know why he had charged them so much for less than 5 minutes work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice 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.
In the above story, how much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the equipment stopped working and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for having invested years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to quickly assess and avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a website set up and configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other web properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
Although the solution to many problems often seems quite easy in hindsight, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services you need to set up and activate to achieve specific results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured to make sure things work to plan, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite involved and complicated. This is because it’s not as easy as installing a plugin, configuring some settings in your admin area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of various different components including your server, your WordPress site, and a number of third-party sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these areas.
Configuring Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is configuring settings in your web hosting account specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic you may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwanted traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like configuring spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been checked and configured, the next step is to set up and configure a number of third-party sites.
Integration With External Accounts
The concept behind setting up external sites is that all content should be published to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will radiate outwards to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external platforms have been added to your system, content with links pointing back to your site is automatically syndicated to these platforms. Your content and business will benefit from exposure online, helping you tap into a whole new audience and traffic source.
Some third-party sites and online services will need to be 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 Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with essential information, tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your Google Webmasters account and entering site data, use the account information with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up Google Analytics, your account information can be easily integrated with WordPress using plugins and automatically sent to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account and entering site details with Bing Webmaster Tools, use this information to automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress provides users with 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 a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your web traffic generation system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and get new traffic to your site)
You will need your social media accounts set up 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 pages and bring new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have accounts and profiles set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(There are lots of social sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your social feed.
There are many different solutions you can incorporate into your own web traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website For Traffic
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.
WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Settings Menu – 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 purposely chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services field
By default, only one service is available …
(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 Settings
This section affects how visitors will see your content 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 in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to read the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically ping all the update services you have listed when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(Settings Menu – 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 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 you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your search-friendly URLS …
(Configuring permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, see this tutorial: Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website 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 securing your websites.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop 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
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(Yoast SEO – WP Plugin)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your website’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing to your website using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social sharing to your website using WordPress plugins.
Many social sharing plugins allow you to select which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which users can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring WordPress Traffic Generation 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 include options for improving SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With many themes, adding social sharing buttons to your website is as easy as clicking a few buttons to enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Areas
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic blueprint configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online, you need to make sure that your website stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your website, go here:
Categories & Tags
WordPress tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your website.
(Post categories help search engines classify and index your pages, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s post tags and categories during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications find more of your online content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. HTML site maps are web pages that link to all other content on your site and provide users with a visual map of how your content is organized, whereas XML sitemaps are code that only search engine bots can understand. Although search engines like Google can index your site just from 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 Page – Don’t Forget This!
When visitors searching for your website enter the wrong URL or click on an invalid hyperlink, they will normally be presented with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found page)
A 404 page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error 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 admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to generate web 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 a number of different components and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many web professionals a long time to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help business owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress-powered website and proven web marketing strategies.
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