Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website 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 web site, all you have to do is add new content consistently to automatically begin attracting more traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase of this process. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section of the series, we discuss the configuration phase of this process. We explain why an expertly configured WordPress site is different, and how much work needs to be done to ensure that when all is fully configured, you can automatically begin attracting web traffic when you publish web content to your website.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With competition becoming progressively tougher businesses are looking for any advantage they can that can help you improve their performance online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can be a huge advantage. With an expertly configured website, your business has a flying start from the moment your site is launched.
The Configuration Phase Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to explain the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this here is an amusing anecdote.
A Semi-True Story …
Everything is going fine in the gizmo plant when suddenly, things stop.
As no one can figure out what’s happened, the floor manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
The expert arrives soon afterwards and, without saying a word, immediately goes towards the control box. After staring silently at the schematics for 3 minutes or less, the expert then produces a teensy-weensy little hammer from his tool box and makes a very gentle tap about one cm from the left side of the control unit.
Immediately, the assembly line springs back to life.
The floor manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a request of payment for services for the sum of $5,000.
Furious, the factory manager dials the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them such an exorbitant fee for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when the machines stopped working and no one in the business had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to get paid fairly for years spent developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly assess and avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your blog configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
While experts often make complicated things look easy, 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 basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party accounts you need to set up to achieve specific outcomes
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured to ensure that things work as envisioned, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite involved. This is because it’s not just about installing one or two plugins, configuring some settings in your admin area or clicking on a button or two … it’s all of this and so much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your web server, your website, and various external sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simplified diagram of the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your web server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your business may attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been checked and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites.
External Sites & Solutions – Configuration
The concept behind setting up external sites is that all content should be published from a central location (your site) and from there, it will automatically be syndicated to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external platforms to your system, content with links pointing back to your site will get automatically published on search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and business will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some third-party sites will need to be set up before configuring your site’s settings to 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 settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmasters lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with essential data, SEO tools and reports about your website.
Once your account has been set up, use the details with 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 website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data are set up, you can add traffic tracking information to WordPress using a plugin and send data instantly to many other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, the account details can be used with traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers both a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to build a professional online presence.
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 with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your traffic 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 your various social accounts set up in order to integrate these with your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site.
You should have profiles with all of the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can You can post your content to many social sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick those that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(There are many social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging web platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your account.
There are many different solutions you can incorporate into your web traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the list of update services entered into the Update Services text area
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 influence web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your site 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 most important setting in this section as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to notify all the update services you have listed whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(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 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings Section)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your post permalinks …
(Configuring post permalinks)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, see this step-by-step tutorial: Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
WordPress Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief 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 website for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No website is completely safe from a cyberattack.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to attacks from hackers and botnets.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages more search engine friendly …
(WordPress SEO plugins help increase traffic by improving your website’s ability to rank better in search engines)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to find, classify and index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing buttons to your site with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site using free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social share plugins allow you to select which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which users can unlock by sharing your page.
WP Theme Features
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 the layout and design of your site, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a free theme) come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing features to your content is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Additional Areas To Configure For Better Traffic Results
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in visitor 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 as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you do business online, it’s important that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, see this article:
Post Tags And Post Categories
WordPress post tags and categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your web pages.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s categories and tags should be set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
When considering ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post categories and tags have been set up correctly to deliver optimal results.
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 discover more of 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 different things. Although Google will index your site just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Your 404 Page
When visitors searching for your website type in the wrong web address into their browser or click on links pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they will typically be greeted with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up on your web server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to attract web traffic is add great content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and expertise required to perform this stage of the traffic automation process typically takes many website developers months to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is addressed in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Three
To continue reading about this topic, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively using a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
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