Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive traffic automatically to your website using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is add content on a regular basis to start generating new traffic!)
In Part 2, we focused on 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 was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will discuss the configuration phase of this process. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site so you can automatically start attracting traffic when you add fresh content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive on a global scale and are looking for any advantage they can to increase their competitiveness online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand is a huge competitive advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off to a flying start as soon as their site is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s a simple way to understand the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this here is an amusing story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All was going well in the widget assembly plant when all of a sudden, all machines stopped.
No one could figure out what has happened and so the floor manager decided to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert walked immediately towards the main control box. After staring at the wires and circuitry for less than 5 minutes or so, the expert then produced a teensy-weensy hammer from his tool box and made a single tap about 1 cm from the left side of the control unit.
Immediately, the plant started working once again.
The floor manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager received an invoice for the sum of $5,000.
The manager picked up the phone and dialed the expert, demanding to know why he had charged them so much for less than five minutes work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive web traffic to their sites.
How much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for investing years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to immediately repair a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP website or blog configured so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be immediately 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 site?)
Although many experts often make difficult things look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring some basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up and activated to get specific results
- Which settings need to be configured in order to make sure everything functions the way you want, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite involved and time-consuming. It’s not as simple as installing and configuring a plugin, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of various different components including your web server, your website or blog, and various external sites and online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these areas.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for installation purposes. What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings in your server that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web hosting account 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 site will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like configuring server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites and services.
Third-Party Web Properties
The basic idea of adding external sites is that all of your content will get posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external services to your traffic network, content with links pointing back to your site will be automatically published on these platforms. Your site will be given added exposure to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some web properties and online platforms will need to be set up before configuring your site to help speed up the process and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of important data, tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site data, this information can be used with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your up your account and entered your site data, you can add visitor tracking information to all of your web pages in WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and send data automatically to many other online applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account and entering site details, use the account information to automate traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers users the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your web traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need your social accounts set up in order to 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 bring new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have pages set up with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can You can post your content to many social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we will cover some of these tools in more detail in the Automation phase).
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add an RSS feed from your WordPress site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an 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 various 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 server settings and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Global WordPress Settings
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and often overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Section)
As stated in the Update Services section,
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, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services box
By default, this section lists only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(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 your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays 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 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.
The main setting in this section as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to ping all the update services you have listed in the Update Services area whenever a new post is 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 unticked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion
Although this section is mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to blogs 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your site’s search-friendly URLS …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using permalinks in WordPress here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including traffic generation.
Let’s 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 WordPress site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is completely safe from being attacked by hackers.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
More information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web content easily indexable …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress Plugin)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your website’s SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also lets you specify how to display your content in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site using free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site with free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social plugins allow you to select which social 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 shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress Traffic Generation Theme Settings – 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 site, some themes also give you options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages 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 turned on with the click of a button)
Configuring Other WordPress Settings
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong 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 is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Legally Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article on how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog here:
Post Tags & Post Categories
Post tags and categories help search engines classify and index your website, which helps to increase traffic.
(Post categories help search engines better classify and index your pages, which improves traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s post categories and tags earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
When configuring your website to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags you have set up.
HTML Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites find your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Configure Your Site’s 404 Error Page
When visitors searching for your site enter the wrong web address or click on hyperlinks pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they will normally be greeted with a 404 Not Found page …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured into a useful source of traffic to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 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 Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do to bring more web traffic is add fresh content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and external web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform the configuration phase of the traffic automation process can take some web professionals months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is addressed in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Part 3
To continue reading about this topic, click here:
This tutorial is part of an article series designed to help you learn how to grow your business with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing strategies that are easy to implement.
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"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
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