Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a site into an automated web traffic generating machine using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is post great content consistently to automatically start driving web traffic!)
In Part Two, we focused on the setup phase. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this section, we discuss the configuration stage of the traffic automation process. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured to ensure that new visitors will automatically start flowing when you begin publishing new content to your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as their greatest challenge online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive on a global scale and are looking for any and every advantage available to increase their competitiveness online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge advantage. An expertly configured website gives your business a flying start and an immediate competitive advantage online.
The Configuration Phase Is What Makes The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to explain the key 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 website gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does it take extra labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
To illustrate this point here is a little story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything was going well in the widget workshop when things suddenly stopped working.
No one could figure out what happened and so the floor manager decided to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately walked towards the control box. After staring at the electronic components for 5 minutes or so, the expert then produced a little hammer from his tool belt and made a gentle tap near the left corner of the control unit.
Immediately, the plant returned to normal.
The manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager received a service bill for $5,000.
The manager rang back the expert, demanding to know why they were charged so much for less than five minutes work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving new traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the plant stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one in the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to get paid fairly for investing years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your website or blog configured so all you had to do is publish new content and search engines, social media and dozens of other online properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
Although the solution to many challenges often seems ridiculously easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than simply installing a website and configuring basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up and activate to get specific results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure in order to make sure things will work as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite involved. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing one or two plugins, configuring some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your web hosting server, your website or blog, and various external sites and services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we create a simple flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a brief look at these areas.
Your Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your site can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like integrating server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess and 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites and services.
3rd-Party Accounts Integration
The basic idea of choosing external sites is that all content should be posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, get distributed automatically to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external sites have been added to your network, content linking back to your website will be automatically added to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social sites, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your business will be given exposure to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the external sites 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 before configuring your site’s settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell 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.
After setting up your account and entering site data, use this information with web traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data have been set up, traffic tracking information can be added to all of your pages in WordPress via plugins used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account has been set up, you can use the information 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 option if you plan to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, 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 this into your web traffic system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social accounts set up before you can 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 drive new traffic to your site.
You should have accounts and pages set up with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can You can post your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools (we cover 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 source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add a feed from your WordPress blog …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute social content to social networks)
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 platforms you can incorporate into your web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains an important and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, this section lists only one entry …
(Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(WordPress lets you 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 in this section can have an influence traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website to view the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to instantly notify the list of update services whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion
Although discussion settings are 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings Screen)
Here are some of the ways permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
For a detailed tutorial on setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: How To Change WordPress Permalinks
Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
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 completely safe from cyberattacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to botnets and hackers.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages easily indexable …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress Plugins For SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing features to your website using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social features to their website using WordPress plugins.
Most social sharing plugins let you select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, some themes also include options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a free theme) have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure For Better Traffic Flow
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in visitor 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 start finding and visiting your website.
If you do business online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your site stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your site, see this article:
WordPress Post Categories And Tags
WordPress categories and tags help search engines index your web pages, which improves traffic.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your site’s post categories and tags earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
When configuring your site to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories that have been set up.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications find your web 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. Only search engines can interpret XML sitemaps. Although search engines like Google can index your site 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 results in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When visitors searching online for your site type in the wrong web address or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they are greeted with a 404 page …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then is publish great content on a consistent basis to begin bringing traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many website developers months to learn.
Once you have expertly 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 article in our WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To keep reading, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive tutorial series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business using a WordPress-powered website and proven marketing methods that are easy and quick to implement.
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