Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this article series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to bring traffic is publish fresh content regularly!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured in order to attract new traffic automatically when you post fresh content to your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business becoming increasingly more competitive, it’s worth exploring any and every advantage available to improve your own performance online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge competitive advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the very start.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to describe the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence plus an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does it take more labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a joke.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All is going well in the widget factory when all of a sudden, things comes to a complete stop.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the manager decides to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert walks straight towards the control box. After staring at the electronic components for less than 2 minutes or so, the expert then produces a little hammer from his utility belt and makes a single tap near the left-hand side of the unit.
Immediately, everything springs back to life.
The plant manager is greatly overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Outraged and bewildered, the factory manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged so much for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors 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 in our story not have every right to demand fair compensation for having spent years developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your website or blog configured so all you have 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 you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems often seems ridiculously simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than installing a website and configuring a few settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services need to be set up to achieve desired outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured to ensure that processes will work the way you have envisioned, etc.
(Generating new 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 complicated. It’s not just about installing one or two plugins, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your website or blog, and a number of third-party sites and/or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simplified flowchart showing all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these steps in more detail.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for installation purposes. What we are talking about, is tweaking settings in your server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web 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 may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like integrating spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your server settings and configuring these, the next step is to configure a number of third-party sites.
External Services
The basic idea of choosing external sites is that all content gets published to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it then gets automatically distributed to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external platforms into your system, content pointing back to your website gets automatically fed to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social media accounts, even to users of the platform itself. Your content and site will receive additional exposure online, helping your business tap into a whole new audience and source of traffic.
Some third-party sites and online solutions will need to be set up before configuring your site to speed up the process 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 Webmasters
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of important data, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site details, your details can be used to automate web traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s performance, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add your account information to all of your web pages in WordPress via a simple plugin and feed data automatically to other useful applications.
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, use the account information to automate web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers users a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to build a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social media and social bookmarking accounts set up 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 attract new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have accounts set up with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social sites you can syndicate your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose the ones that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools (we discuss some of these tools in greater detail during the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to loads of social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add a feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your own RebelMouse account.
There are various platforms you can incorporate into your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress Site Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Section)
As described in the Update Services 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 – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(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 …
(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 visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site to get the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to notify all the update services you have listed whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
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 articles, 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 you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, see this tutorial: Configuring WordPress Permalinks
Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including traffic generation.
Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No web site is safe from cyber-attacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to attacks from hackers and bots.
For more information, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins help increase traffic by improving your site’s ability to rank better in search engines)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with their social networks can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their website using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website using WordPress plugins.
Most social share plugins allow you to select which 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 shares), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to protect content which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring WordPress Traffic Generation Theme Features
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your site is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to enable the function …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic Automation – Additional Configuration Areas
Last (but by no means least) in the WordPress traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
WordPress Post Categories & Tags
WordPress post categories & tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your website.
(Post categories help search engines index your pages, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s post tags and post categories during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits.
Add A Site Map
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites find your online content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although Google will index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Forget To Configure This Too!
When visitors searching online for your site type in the wrong URL or click on links pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they are greeted with an error – page not found message …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover 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 page can be set up on your web server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do is add content consistently to begin attracting web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform this phase of the traffic automation process typically takes many website developers a long time to learn.
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 explained in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online using a WordPress-driven website and proven marketing strategies that are easy to implement.
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