Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your website into an automated web traffic machine using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is publish web content consistently to start generating 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 has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration stage of the traffic system. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured in order to automatically start getting new traffic simply by adding fresh content on your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as their greatest challenge online. With competition becoming increasingly more difficult businesses are looking for every opportunity they can to improve their performance online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage over the competition. An expertly configured website gives you an immediate advantage from the very beginning.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to explain the difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only is extra labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an anecdote.
A Semi-True Story …
All was humming along in the widget factory when things ground to a sudden halt.
No one could figure out what happened and so the manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert headed out directly to the main control box. After staring at the circuit board for 2 minutes, the expert then produced a teensy-weensy little hammer and made a very gentle tap about one cm from the top-right edge of the box.
Immediately, the machinery came back to life.
The plant manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The factory manager rang back the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for less than five minutes work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive new visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to demand fair compensation for spending years developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WP website or blog configured so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social sites like Facebook and LinkedIn 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 attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although experts often make difficult situations and problems look simple, 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 some basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install to add certain functionalities to your site.
- Which third-party accounts you need to set up to get specific results
- Which options you need to configure in order to ensure that processes will work as expected, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite complicated. This is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a solution, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your web server, your web site, and a number of external sites and/or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we create a simplified flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the configuration process)
Let’s examine these areas in more detail.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your hosting account that affect how your website will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your hosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your business can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwanted traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like integrating spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and services.
External Services
The basic idea of adding external sites is that all of your content will be published from a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will be automatically distributed to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external platforms have been added to your network, content pointing back to your website will get automatically posted to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content will benefit from exposure online, helping your business tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of these external sites and online solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site to save time 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 before configuring your WordPress site:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with important data, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account is set up, use your information to automate traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your account, traffic tracking information can be added to all of your web pages in WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and instantly sent to various other useful applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, this information can be used to automate traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, 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 automated web traffic generation system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media and social bookmarking accounts 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 accounts and get new visitors to your site.
Set up accounts with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can You can syndicate your content to many social sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools (we discuss some of these tools in greater detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are lots of social sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add an RSS feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute your content to social networks)
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 social feed.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your own web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains an important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Global 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 specifically chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services box
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section contains only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress will do the rest …
(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
***
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, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website to read 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 main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to automatically notify your update services list whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion
Although this section is 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 Screen)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your permalinks …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: How To Set Up WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to attract more visitors to your site
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is immune from a cyberattack.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
Go here for more info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages more search engine friendly …
(SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your site’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing features to your website easily using free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site with WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins allow you to select 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 social plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring Settings – Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, many themes also provide built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for improved traffic results)
With many themes, adding social sharing features to your site is as easy as clicking a few buttons to enable the function …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure For Increased Traffic
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can cause serious damage to your business when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online (or plan to), it’s important that your site complies with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
Post Tags And Post Categories
WordPress tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your website.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your site’s post categories and tags during the Website Planning Process.
When looking at ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits.
Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications discover 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 two different things. Although Google can index your site just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page – An Additional Source Of Web Traffic!
When online users type in the wrong web address into their browser or click on a dead link, they are presented with an error page (known as a 404 page) …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up in your web server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do is post web content regularly to drive traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration process can take many web professionals a long time 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 covered in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Section 3
To keep reading this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of an tutorial series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively and drive traffic sustainably using a WordPress-driven website and proven online marketing methods.
Subscribe Using The Form Below And Get Notified When New Tutorials Get Published!
***
"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
***