Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive traffic automatically to your website using WordPress.
In Part One of this 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 or blog, all you have to do to automatically start generating new web traffic is post new content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we discussed critical setup decisions. 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 website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that web traffic will automatically start flowing simply by adding new content regularly to your web site.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as their greatest challenge online. With business becoming ever more competitive, it’s worth learning about any and every advantage that can help you get better results online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage over the competition. For businesses, an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start from the moment their site is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a 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 take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here is a simple 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 tool!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a little story.
Knowing Where To Tap
Everything was humming along in the widget-making factory when things came to a sudden stop.
No one could figure out what happened and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and, without uttering a word, immediately walked to the control box. After staring at the wiring diagrams for what seemed like 3 minutes or less, the expert then produced a teeny-weeny little hammer from his pocket and made a gentle tap near the right corner of the box.
Immediately, everything came back to life.
The manager was delighted as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment 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 drive traffic consistently to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to get paid fairly for investing years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to assess and fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a web site configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other online properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
Although experts often make complex solutions look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring a few settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to get various functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up to achieve desired outcomes
- Which options need to be configured to make sure things will function the way you have planned, etc.
(Generating 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 difficult, it can be quite involved. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing a piece of software, configuring some settings in your admin area … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your server, your website or blog, and a number of external sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic you can attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like configuring spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites and/or online services.
Integration With External Accounts
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all of your content gets published to a central location (your site) and from there, it syndicates automatically to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After adding these external platforms to your system, content pointing back to your website gets automatically fed to search, social and aggregator sites. Your site will then receive exposure online, helping you tap into new sources of traffic.
Some of these sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress 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 settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with important data, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your Google Search Console account and site data are set up, use the information to automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data are set up, traffic monitoring code can be added to WordPress via a simple plugin and and sent to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account and entering site details, your information can be used with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers both the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your automated traffic generation system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your social media and social bookmarking accounts in order to 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 and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site.
You should have accounts and pages set up with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can You can syndicate your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we will cover some of these tools in more detail further below and in the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to many social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add a feed from your WordPress site …
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 own RebelMouse page.
There are various solutions you can incorporate into your own web traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
Configuring Your WordPress Site
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress dashboard area includes a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most important and often overlooked traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As stated in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services field
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section displays only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you 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!)
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 readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to get 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 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.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to instantly ping the update services list whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion
Although discussion settings 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 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings Section)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your site’s permalink URLs …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
If you need help setting up WP permalinks, see this tutorial: Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Traffic Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to increase traffic
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is completely immune from being hacked.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and botnets.
Go here for more details:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines to find and index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing features to your site using WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site using free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social plugins allow you to choose which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your website, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons to your site is as easy as clicking a few buttons to enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Configuring Other WordPress Areas
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic 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 begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or plan to), it’s important that your site stays compliant with all government laws and regulations.
(Is Your Site Compliant?)
For a detailed article about the importance of having a legally compliant website, refer to this article:
WordPress Post Tags And Categories
Tags & categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s SEO.
(Post categories help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s tags and categories should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the tags and categories that have been set up.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover more of your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but 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 pages just from 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 can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Forget This!
When visitors searching online for your site enter the wrong URL into their web browser or click on an invalid link, they are greeted 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 web pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do to automatically start attracting web traffic is add great content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform this process can take many web developers 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 explained in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read more, click here:
This tutorial is part of an article series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-powered website and proven marketing methods that are easy to implement.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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