Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this article 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 blog, all you have to do to attract traffic is add fresh content consistently!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase of this process. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration stage of the traffic system. We will show you why an expertly configured site is different. You will also learn just what kind of work is required to make sure that when all is set up and fully configured, visitors will automatically start flowing as you begin posting new content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive and are exploring any and every advantage they can to get better results online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage over other competitors. Having an expertly configured website gives you an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to explain the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence plus an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only is additional labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing anecdote.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Things are going fine in the gizmo assembly line when suddenly, the equipment stops.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrives and, without uttering a word, heads immediately towards the control box. After staring silently at the circuit board for about 2 minutes or so, the expert then takes out a tiny hammer and makes a single tap near the bottom-right edge of the control unit.
Immediately, everything springs back to life.
The plant manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Confused and outraged, the factory manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a large amount of money for less than five minutes work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic consistently to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to ask to be compensated fairly for years spent acquiring the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to immediately assess and avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WP site set up and configured so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networking sites 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 driving traffic to your site?)
While the solution to many problems may seem quite easy in hindsight, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than installing a website and configuring some of the site settings for clients. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party services need to be set up and activated to achieve certain results
- Which settings need to be configured in order to make sure processes will work as envisioned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not technically challenging, but it’s quite involved and time-consuming. This is because it’s not just about installing a solution, configuring some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your server, your WordPress site, and a number of third-party sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine what’s involved.
Configuring The Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings and options in your web-hosting account specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, 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 site may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like implementing server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step is to configure a number of external sites and services.
Integration With External Web Properties
The concept behind choosing external sites is that all of your content gets posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it gets distributed automatically to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After adding these external platforms to your network, content linked back to your website gets automatically posted to search, social and aggregator sites. Your business will be given additional exposure to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site’s settings to speed up the configuration process 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 Search Console
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of important information, SEO tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site data, you can use your information with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic performance, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data are set up, you can add tracking information to all of your web pages in WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data instantly to other applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account with Bing Webmaster Tools, use this information to integrate and automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, 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 online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social 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 get new visitors to your site.
You should set up accounts and profiles with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up and syndicate your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will look at some of these tools in more detail during the Automation phase).
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
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 own RebelMouse account.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your web traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up third-party site accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As stated in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have intentionally chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, this section contains only one entry …
(Writing Settings – WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section and WordPress will do the rest …
(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
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 have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to view the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The most important setting here as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to automatically notify the update services list when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(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 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your SEO-friendly URLs …
(Configuring permalinks)
If you need help setting up permalinks, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress – Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling 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, web security is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
More info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your site more search engine friendly …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your site more search engine friendly)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, classify and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with members of their own social communities 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 WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social plugins allow you to choose 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 plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress Traffic Theme Features – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout 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) come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your site is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Features
Last (but by no means least) in the 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 website for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you do business online, it’s important that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
We have created a detailed article on why it’s important to have a compliant website here:
Categories And Post Tags
Post tags and categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.
(WordPress categories help search engines index your website, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s tags and categories earlier on, 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 set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits.
Visitor Site Map
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages to visitors 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 traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although search engines like Google will index your site just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your Site’s 404 Error Page
When online users type in the wrong URL into their web browser or click on a link pointing to a destination on your website that no longer exists, they will typically be presented with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
A 404 page can be turned into a useful source of traffic to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up in 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 Process – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to begin bringing new traffic is publish web content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The skills and knowledge involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some website professionals a long time to acquire.
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 the series.
This is the end of Part 3
To keep reading about this topic, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help site owners learn how to grow their business online and drive traffic automatically with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy to implement.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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