Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new visitors 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 consistently to automatically start generating more web traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the traffic automation process. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing site was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. We will show you how a WordPress site should be configured in order to get web traffic automatically just by publishing web content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by website owners as their greatest challenge online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive and are looking for any and every advantage available to get better results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous competitive advantage. An expertly configured website gives you a flying start and an immediate competitive advantage online.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s a simple way to understand the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does it take additional labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
Knowing Where To Tap
Everything is going just fine in the gizmo-making assembly line when all of a sudden, things comes to a halt.
No one can figure out what is wrong and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert.
The expert arrives within in less than an hour and, without saying a word, immediately goes to the control box. After staring at the electronic components for less than 3 minutes, the expert then takes out a teensy-weensy little hammer and makes a gentle tap about 2 inches from the left edge of the unit.
Immediately, the assembly line returns to normal.
The floor manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager receives a request of payment for services totalling $5,000.
Confused and bewildered, the factory manager picks up the phone and dials the expert. Demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a large amount of money for less than five minutes work, he then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives and is placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the equipment stopped functioning and no one in the business had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to demand fair compensation for years spent acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to immediately assess and avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WP web site set up and configured so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social networks and dozens of other 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 experts often make difficult things look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring settings for clients. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party accounts you need to set up and activate to achieve specific results
- Which options need to be configured in order to ensure that everything works how you expect, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite involved and complicated. This is because it’s not as easy as installing a solution, clicking a couple of buttons, or configuring some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration stage is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your site, and various external sites …
(Expertly configuring your website 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 like this …
(A simplistic diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these areas.
Configuring Your Web Server
We’re not talking 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 fine-tuning settings in your web server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic you will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for both bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like implementing spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess and error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
After your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step is to set up and configure various third-party sites.
External Sites
The concept behind choosing external sites is that all content should be published from a central location (your site) and from there, radiate outwards to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external sites have been added to your traffic system, content linking back to your site gets automatically published on search, social and aggregator sites. Your content will be exposed to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some web properties and online services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings 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 before configuring your site’s settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with useful data, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site data with Google have been set up, use this information with web traffic settings 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 traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
After setting up your account, you can add tracking information to all of your pages in WordPress via a simple Google Analytics plugin and feed data automatically to many other applications and web properties.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account and site details with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, this information can be used to automate traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress provides users with a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to grow a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic generation system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need your various 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 accounts and drive new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have accounts set up with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(There are many social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging technology platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary-level 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 site that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute social content to social networks)
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 web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
WordPress Settings
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(Global Settings – 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 or your webmaster have purposely configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section includes only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
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 your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could impact 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 excerpts, 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 checkbox is ticked or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to instantly ping the update services list whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion Settings
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 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring WordPress Traffic Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can improve traffic generation
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot afford to ignore the importance of web security.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to bots and hackers.
More info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your site’s SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with their friends and members of their social networks can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing to your site easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Many social plugins let you choose which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which users can unlock by liking your page.
Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, many themes also provide options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Configuring Other WordPress Areas For More Traffic Results
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online, you need to make sure that your website complies with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article about the importance of having a legally compliant website here:
Post Categories And Post Tags
Post categories and post tags help search engines better classify and index your web pages, which improves traffic.
(Categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your website’s post tags and post categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
When configuring your site to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and categories you have set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications discover your online content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Only search engines can understand an XML sitemap. Although Google can index your pages 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.
404 Page Not Found – Don’t Forget To Configure It!
When visitors searching online for your website enter the wrong URL into their browser or click on an invalid hyperlink, they are greeted with a 404 Not Found error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web 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 in your server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do to automatically bring more traffic is publish great content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some web developers a long time to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is covered in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help site owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively and drive traffic automatically with a WordPress-powered website and proven online marketing strategies.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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