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 series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is post great content on a regular basis to automatically begin attracting more traffic!)
In Part Two, we focused on the setup phase of this process. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your website was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. We explain how to configure a WordPress site so you can automatically begin to get traffic whenever you post new content to your website.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With competition becoming increasingly more difficult businesses are exploring any opportunity they can to get better results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage over the competition. With an expertly configured website, you have a flying start and an immediate competitive advantage online.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to describe the main difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let me illustrate this with a little story.
Knowing Where To Tap
All is going well in the widget-making factory when the equipment suddenly stops.
As no one can figure out what went wrong, the manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert goes immediately to the main control box. After staring silently at the board for less than 5 minutes, the expert then produces a tiny hammer from his tool belt and makes a very gentle tap near the left side of the unit.
Immediately, everything starts working once more.
The floor manager is filled with joy as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Feeling furious, the manager rings the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them such a ludicrous fee for less than 5 minutes work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving new traffic to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the equipment stopped functioning and no one in the factory floor had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for spending years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to assess and repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP site fully set up so all you ever had to do is publish new content and search engines, social sites and dozens of other online properties would be automatically 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 site?)
While the solution to many challenges is often ridiculously simple once implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than simply installing a website and configuring a few internal settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party accounts need to be set up and activated to achieve specific outcomes
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to make sure everything works as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. This is because it’s not as simple as installing and configuring a plugin, tweaking some settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of different parts including your web hosting server, your website or blog, and a number of external sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If all the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these areas.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your server that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your site will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage 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 things like configuring spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After your web server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step is to set up and configure various third-party sites.
External Sites
The purpose of adding external sites is that all content should be published to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, get distributed automatically to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external platforms into your configuration, content with links pointing back to your website will get automatically posted to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your business receives 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 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:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of essential information, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site details with Google Webmasters are set up, use your information to integrate and automate web traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic results, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, traffic monitoring code can be added to all of your web pages in WordPress via a simple plugin and and sent to various other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account, you can use this information with web traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers users a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your web traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social media accounts before you can 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.
You should have accounts set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work well with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(There are loads of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
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 account.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress Site Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress – Global Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains an important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As stated in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section contains only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section …
(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 on this page can influence web 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 site to get the rest of the content from excerpts, 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.
Generally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to instantly ping various update services when a new post gets 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 …
(WordPress Settings – 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 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 Screen)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow your site to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways your permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about setting up WordPress permalinks, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can improve traffic generation
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of web security.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to attacks from hackers and botnets.
Go here for more info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(Yoast SEO – WP SEO Plugin)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with their own friends and networks can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social features to your website easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social features to your site with free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social plugins let you specify which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
WP Themes
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 design and layout of your site, many themes also include built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure settings and options for improved traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
Additional Features Of WordPress To Configure For Improved Traffic
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic 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 site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?)
To learn more about how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog, refer to this article:
Categories & Post Tags
Tags and categories help search engines index your web pages, which improves traffic.
(WordPress categories help to improve your site’s search optimization, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s post tags and post categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been set up correctly to deliver optimal results.
Add A Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications discover more of your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. HTML site maps are web pages that link to all other content on your site and provide visitors with a visual map of how your content is structured, whereas XML sitemaps are code that only search engine bots can read. Although search engines like Google can 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 results in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When online users type in the wrong URL or click on an invalid hyperlink, they will normally be greeted with an error page (known as a 404 page) …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 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 from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to begin driving web traffic is add great content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of various elements and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some website developers a long time to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as can be automated. This step is covered in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section 3
To keep reading about this topic, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of an article series aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively using a WordPress-powered website and proven online marketing strategies.
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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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