Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new traffic automatically to your site using WordPress.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is post great content regularly to automatically begin bringing new traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase. We explained the best way to start 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 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 discuss the configuration stage of the traffic automation process. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured to attract new visitors automatically just by posting fresh content to your website.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Also, the business landscape is becoming so much more competitive and businesses are looking for every advantage they can that can help you increase their competitiveness online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous competitive advantage. Having an expertly configured WordPress site gives you a flying start as soon as 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 an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to explain the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a 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 it take extra work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this here is a story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything was running smoothly in the gizmo assembly line when things ground to a sudden stop.
No one could figure out what has happened and so the manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and walked immediately to the main control box. After staring silently at the wires and circuitry for 2 minutes, the expert then took out a tiny hammer and made a very gentle tap near the top-right side of the unit.
Immediately, everything came back to life.
The floor manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager received an invoice for $5,000.
The manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why they were charged such an exorbitant fee for less than 5 minutes work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrived in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving new visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for having spent years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to quickly assess and avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a site configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social sites and dozens of other traffic-generating 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 website?)
While many experts often make difficult things look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party services you need to set up and activate to get desired results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to make sure things will function to plan, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. It’s not just about installing and configuring one or two plugins, clicking a couple of buttons, or configuring some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase is a complex process that involves your server, your WP site, and a number of external sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If the activities involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram of the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these steps in more detail.
Configuring Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for site installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is tweaking settings in your web server that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your site will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like integrating spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites and services.
External Accounts
The basic idea of setting up external sites is that all of your content gets published from one central location (your site) and from there, it then gets distributed automatically to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external sites into your traffic network, content linked back to your website will be automatically published on these platforms. Your content and business will be given exposure to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of the third-party sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to help 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 before configuring your WordPress site:
Google Webmasters
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmasters lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with useful data, SEO tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site details, use this information with web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data are set up, you can add tracking code to all of your web pages in WordPress using a simple Google Analytics plugin and send data instantly to many other applications and web properties.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account and entering site data, use your account information with web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your web traffic generation system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social 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 and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site.
Set up accounts and profile pages with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can You can post your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we discuss some of these tools in more detail during the Automation phase).
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add a feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your social feed.
There are various sites and platforms that can be added to your web traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress – Global Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress 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 Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
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 configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, only one service is listed …
(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
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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 on this page can have an influence traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website to view 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 your traffic system is concerned, however, the most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to ping the list of update services when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – 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 blogs linked to from your articles, 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
Permalinks allow your site to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways your search-friendly URLS can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your site, 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. No website or blog is completely immune from a cyber attack.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and bots.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your website’s SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and 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.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their website using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Many social share plugins let you specify which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, some themes also provide built-in options for improving SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a free theme) include built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as clicking a few buttons to enable the function …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic System – Additional Configuration Areas
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you are making money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website complies with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
Tags & Categories
Post categories & tags help search engines index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help search engines index your web pages, which improves traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s post categories and tags during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories that have been set up.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
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 tools discover more of your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Forget To Configure It!
When visitors searching for your website enter the wrong URL into their web browser or click on links pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they are presented with a 404 Not Found page …
(A 404 Error 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 Not Found error page can be set up on your server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do is add web content regularly to begin bringing new traffic organically.
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 …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many website professionals a long time to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is explained in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Section Three
To keep reading about this topic, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of an tutorial series designed to help you learn how to grow your business using a WordPress-powered website and proven web marketing strategies.
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