Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your website into an automated traffic machine 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 web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to bring more traffic is add fresh content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we focused on critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will discuss the configuration phase of the traffic system. We will show you why an expertly configured WordPress site is different, and how much work is required to make sure that when all is fully set up and configured, you can attract traffic automatically simply by adding content on your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive on a global scale and are looking for any advantage they can to increase their competitiveness online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the very beginning.
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 a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to describe the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
Knowing Where To Tap
All is humming along in the gizmo workshop when all of a sudden, things comes to a 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 directly towards the control box. After staring at the board for no more than 2 minutes, the expert then takes out a teensy-weensy hammer from his tool box and makes a single tap about three inches from the right edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything returns to normal.
The floor manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
With great anger, the factory manager calls the expert. Why had he charged them so much for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives and is placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the factory stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to be compensated fairly for investing years developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a site configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other web properties would be immediately 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 site?)
While experts often make complex situations and problems look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than installing a website and configuring some basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party accounts need to be set up to achieve certain outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured to make sure processes will run as planned, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. This is because it’s not as simple as installing a plugin, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many different parts such as your web server, your website or blog, and various external sites …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If the activities involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine these steps in more detail.
Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for site installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your web server that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your webhosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic you can attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like configuring spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites.
External Accounts
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all of your content should be posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external services have been added to your system, content with links pointing back to your site will be automatically added to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and business will then receive increased exposure online, helping your business tap into a new audience and traffic source.
Some external sites and online solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your settings to help speed up the configuration 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 Search Console – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of important data, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your Google Search Console account and entering site details, your information can be used with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add visitor tracking code to WordPress using a plugin and send data automatically to various other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account with Bing, use your details to automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers both a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform 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 various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated web traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social media and social bookmarking accounts in order to 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 pages and attract new traffic to your site.
You should have accounts set up with all of the well-known 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 create accounts with all of them, just choose the ones that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we will look at some of these tools in greater detail in the Automation phase).
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging web platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add a feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
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 RebelMouse website.
There are various solutions you can incorporate into your traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress Site Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As described below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services text area
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is available …
(Writing Settings – WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post to this section …
(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
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, your choice of displaying the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to read 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 your traffic system is concerned, however, the most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to automatically ping all the update services you have listed when new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, do not check this box …
(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 sites 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)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your search-friendly URLS …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring Settings – WordPress Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s take a brief look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you simply cannot ignore the importance of securing your website.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to bots and hackers.
For more information, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web content more indexable …
(WordPress SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing 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+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with members of their own social communities can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing buttons to your site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social features to their website using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social share plugins let you choose which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting 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, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, some themes also give you options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a free theme) allow you to configure options and settings for improved traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your site is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic – Other Aspects To Consider
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can damage 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 compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
Post Categories And Tags
Categories & tags help to improve your site’s SEO, which helps you get more traffic.
(Categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s post tags and post categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the tags and categories that have been set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools discover your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, whereas an XML sitemap is mostly code that only search engine bots can read. Although search engines like Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Don’t Forget Your 404 Error Page
When visitors searching for your site type in the wrong web address or click on a link pointing to a page on your website that no longer exists, they are presented with an error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Error 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 recover web 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 Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do to automatically drive more traffic is add content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many website developers a long time to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is explained in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Section Three
To keep reading this article, click here:
This article is part of an article series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
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