Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do is post web content on a regular basis to generate more traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing website was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured in order to bring traffic automatically when you begin publishing new content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business getting so much more competitive, it’s worth exploring every advantage that can help you increase your own competitiveness online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage. An expertly configured website gives you an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
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 its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to understand the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and an 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.
Let me illustrate this point with an amusing little story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All was going fine in the widget-making workshop when things suddenly ground to a halt.
No one could figure out what has happened and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and, without saying a word, immediately walked to the control box. After staring silently at the schematics for about 2 minutes, the expert then produced a tiny hammer from his shirt pocket and made a single tap about 1 inch from the left side of the box.
Immediately, everything came back to life.
The floor manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The manager rang back the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged such a ridiculously high fee for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work and promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when the equipment stopped working and no one in the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to get paid fairly for years spent developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to immediately fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your website or blog set up so all you ever had to do is publish new content and search engines, social media and dozens of other web 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 driving traffic to your website?)
Although experts often make complex things look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to work things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which services you need to set up and activate to achieve specific results
- Which options need to be configured in order to ensure that things function as envisioned, 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 technically difficult, it can be quite involved. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a plugin, configuring some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your web hosting server, your website or blog, and a number of third-party sites and services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we create a simple diagram showing all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings in your server that affect how your site 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 traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your site will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like configuring server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites.
Third-Party Services
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all content should be published from one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, be automatically distributed to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external services into your system, content with links pointing back to your site will be automatically posted to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social media sites, even to users of the platform itself. Your business will be given exposure to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site’s settings to save time and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Search Console lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account with Google, the information can be used with 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 website’s results, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data are set up, traffic tracking information can be easily integrated with WordPress via plugins used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account has been with Bing have been set up, you can use the account information to integrate and automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers both the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your traffic system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social 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 sites and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site.
Set up accounts with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick those that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(There are loads of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your own RebelMouse social feed.
There are various technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your own web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website
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.
Global WordPress Settings
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have purposely configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the list of update services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 in this section can have an influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in 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.
As far as your traffic system is concerned, however, the main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly notify the update services list whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
Although the settings in this section 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 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways permalinks can be configured …
(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
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that improve traffic generation
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No web site is immune from a cyber attack.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to botnets and hackers.
To learn more, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(SEO plugins help increase traffic by improving your site’s SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your site’s SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with others online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social features to your website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Many social share plugins let you select 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 social share plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WP Theme Features
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, as well as 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 faster indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic Automation – Additional Configuration Steps
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad 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 are making money online (or are planning to), you need to make sure that your website is found to comply with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices.
(Is Your Site Legally Compliant?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, go here:
WordPress Post Categories & Tags
Post tags and post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your website.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your website.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and post categories should be discussed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
When looking at ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags that have been set up.
HTML Site Map
A site map that displays all of your posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications find your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although 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 can result in increased traffic.
Your WordPress 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching online for your site enter the wrong URL or click on an invalid link, they will typically be greeted with an error – page not found message …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your site expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then is add new content consistently to begin bringing more traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many web developers months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part Three
To keep reading, click here:
This article is part of an article series designed to help website owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively using a WordPress-driven website and proven web marketing strategies.
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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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