Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive visitors automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is publish web content on a regular basis to begin bringing traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at 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 site, and what to do if your existing website was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we look at the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. The focus of this section is to help you understand why an expertly configured WordPress site is different, and what kind of work needs to be done to make sure that when all is fully set up and configured, you can automatically start to get traffic when you add new content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business becoming ever more competitive, it’s worth looking into any opportunity you can to improve your performance and results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous competitive advantage. Having an expertly configured WordPress site gives you a flying start and a significant competitive advantage online.
The Configuration Stage Is The Difference
There is a 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 understand the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with an 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 kind of expertise.
To illustrate this point here’s an anecdote.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All is going fine in the gizmo assembly plant when all of a sudden, everything grounds to a stop.
As no one can figure out what’s happened, the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert heads directly towards the control box. After staring at the wiring diagrams for about 3 minutes, the expert then produces a teeny-weeny little hammer from his tool box and makes a very gentle tap about one inch from the right side of the box.
Immediately, the machinery begins working once more.
The floor manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager receives a bill for $5,000.
Feeling furious, the factory manager calls the expert. Why were they expected to pay so much for so little time delivering such minimal amount of work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive traffic consistently to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to ask to be compensated fairly for having invested years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to quickly fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your blog fully set up and configured so all you have to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest 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 website?)
Although many experts often make difficult solutions look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to add various functionalities to your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up to get certain results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure in order to make sure everything will work as expected, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. It’s not just about installing and configuring a piece of software, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of various different components including your web hosting server, your web site, and a number of external sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simple flowchart of the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the configuration phase)
Let’s examine what’s involved.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings in your server that affect how your website will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your hosting account 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 may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like integrating server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites.
External Accounts
The idea behind adding external sites is that all content gets published from a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it gets distributed automatically to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external sites to your configuration, content linking back to your website will get automatically fed to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and site will then receive increased exposure online, helping you tap into a new audience and traffic source.
Some of these third-party sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your settings to help 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 Search Console
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of essential data, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your Google Search Console account and entering site details, use the details with web 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 performance, SEO, marketing efforts, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data have been set up, traffic tracking information can be added to WordPress using plugins used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account with Bing, you can use this information with 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 platform if you are planning to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your social media accounts before you can integrate these with your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site.
You should set up profiles with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with and syndicate your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools (we will cover some of these tools in greater detail during the Automation phase).
(There are lots of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute your 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 users can follow your website.
There are various solutions you can incorporate into your own web traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up external 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 set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress – Global Settings
Your WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As described below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have intentionally configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section includes 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 …
(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
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 traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog 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 traffic is concerned, however, the main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to notify all the update services you have listed whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion
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 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)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the ways your permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about setting up permalinks, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring Settings – WP Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more visitors to your site
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is safe from being attacked by hackers.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to bots and hackers.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web content easily indexable …
(Yoast SEO – WP Plugins For SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your website’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with others can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing to your website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social features to your site with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social share plugins allow you to choose which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which users can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings
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 design and layout aspects of your site, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a free theme) come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic System – Other Features To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be set up 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 how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do business online (or plan to), it’s important that your website is compliant with all government regulations.
(Does Your Site Comply With The Law?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, go here:
Post Tags & Post Categories
WordPress post categories and tags help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.
(Categories help search engines better organize and index your website, 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 Stages.
When considering 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 results.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools find more of your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, while an XML sitemap contains code that only search engine bots can read. Although Google will index your pages just from 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 can result in increased traffic.
404 Page – Another Source Of Traffic!
When visitors enter the wrong URL or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they are greeted with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your server, there are several 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 is post web content on a consistent basis to begin bringing more traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and expertise required to perform this process can take many web professionals months to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is covered in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint 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 tutorial series designed to help business owners learn how to grow their business online and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven web marketing methods.
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