Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new traffic automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS.
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 site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is publish content on a regular basis to begin bringing traffic!)
In Part Two, we focused on critical setup decisions. We helped you understand 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 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. You will learn what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different than a professionally configured site, and how much work needs to be done to ensure that when all is set up and fully configured, you can automatically start getting visitors simply by consistently publishing content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive and are exploring every opportunity they can to improve their performance and results online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous competitive advantage. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website means having a significant advantage from the very beginning.
The Configuration Phase Is What Makes The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s a simple way to understand the differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take more labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
Knowing Where To Tap
All was working according to schedule in the widget assembly line when all of a sudden, the machines stopped.
No one could figure out what happened and so the manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
The expert arrived within in less than 20 minutes and, without uttering a word, immediately headed towards the control box. After staring silently at the circuit board for less than 3 minutes or so, the expert then produced a teeny-weeny little hammer from his shirt pocket and made a gentle tap about 3 inches from the left corner of the box.
Immediately, every machine inside the workshop began working once more.
The plant manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager received an invoice for $5,000.
The manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a large amount of money for less than 5 minutes work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrived in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the equipment stopped functioning and no one in the business had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to be compensated fairly for years spent building up the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly assess and avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a website set up so all you have to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other web properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
Although the solution to many problems often seems ridiculously simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to figure things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up and activated to get desired outcomes
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured to ensure that things will work as planned, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite involved. This is because it’s not just about installing a piece of software, clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase is a process that involves your web hosting server, your site, and a number of third-party sites and online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If all the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine what’s involved.
Configuring The Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During 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 traffic your website may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like integrating spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
Once your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step is to configure various third-party sites.
External Accounts
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all content gets posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it radiates outwards automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you incorporate these external sites into your system, content pointing back to your website is automatically added to these platforms. Your content and website benefits from exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the sites and online services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress settings to help 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 Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with important data, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account, you can use this information with traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, your account information can be integrated with WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and and fed 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 Webmasters. Once your account has been with Bing are set up, you can use this information with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers users the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your automated traffic generation system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new traffic to your site)
You will need your social media accounts set up in order to 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 attract new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have profiles set up with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose the ones that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(You can syndicate your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online technology platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add an RSS feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your page.
There are various sites and platforms you can incorporate into your traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress Site Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress dashboard area includes a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(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 or your webmaster have purposely configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services text box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section lists only one entry …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(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 Settings
This section affects how your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to get the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The most important setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to instantly notify the list of update services when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion Settings
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 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
Your Permalink settings allow you to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the ways post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
If you need help setting up WP permalinks, go here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
Configuring WordPress Traffic Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every type of functionality to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are 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 website or blog is completely immune from being attacked by hackers.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
Go here for more information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(WordPress Plugins For SEO – Yoast SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, classify and index, it also lets you specify how to display your content to Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with their own networks can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social features to your website easily with WordPress plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Many social plugins allow you to specify 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 likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Themes
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 layout and design of your site, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a free theme) allow you to configure options and settings for improved traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a few buttons to configure your settings and enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic System Configuration – Other Don’t Forget These
Last (but by no means least) in the WordPress traffic system configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the situations that can damage your business as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online, it’s important that your site is compliant with all government laws and regulations.
(Does Your Site Comply With The Law?)
We have created a detailed article about how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress site here:
WordPress Categories & Tags
Tags and post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your website.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s categories and tags should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stages.
When looking at ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories that have been set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover your site’s 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 not the same thing. Although Google will index your site just using 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.
Don’t Forget Your Site’s 404 Page
When visitors searching for your site enter the wrong web address into their web browser or click on a link pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they are greeted with a 404 Not Found error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do is post content on a regular basis to automatically attract web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The skills and knowledge involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many website 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 section of the series.
This is the end of Section Three
To keep reading this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of an tutorial series aimed at helping website owners learn how to grow their business using a WordPress website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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