Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is publish new content consistently to automatically generate traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will discuss the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured to automatically start driving web traffic just by regularly publishing content on your web site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive and are exploring any and every advantage they believe will improve their performance and results online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website means having a significant advantage from the very start.
The Configuration Stage Is What Makes All The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to explain the differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is more work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
Knowing Where To Tap
All is humming along in the gizmo assembly plant when all equipment suddenly comes to a complete stop.
No one can figure out what is wrong and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrives and goes immediately to the control box. After staring at the box for no more than 2 minutes, the expert then produces a tiny little hammer and makes a single tap about 1 cm from the right edge of the unit.
Immediately, the plant starts working again.
The manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager receives a request of payment for services for the amount of $5,000.
Bewildered and bordering on a sense of outrage, the factory manager picks up the phone and rings the expert. Why were they expected to pay so much for so little time delivering a minimal amount of work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice 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 being able to drive web traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor was able to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to be compensated fairly for having invested years developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to assess and avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WP web site configured so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social followers from Facebook and LinkedIn and dozens of other online properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your site?)
While experts often make difficult situations and problems look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to work things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than installing a website and configuring a few settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which third-party services you need to set up to get specific outcomes
- Which options you need to configure in order to ensure that things will function as expected, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the 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 and configuring one or two plugins, clicking a couple of buttons, or tweaking some settings in your admin area … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of many different parts including your web hosting server, your website or blog, and a number of external sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram of 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 about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes. What we are talking about, is configuring settings and options in your server that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your website will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both good and unwanted traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up 404 error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
After 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 and online services.
External Accounts
The concept behind setting up external sites is that all content will be posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After adding these external platforms to your traffic system, content pointing back to your website will get automatically added to search, social and aggregator sites. Your website receives additional exposure online, helping your business tap into a new audience and traffic source.
Some sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your site’s settings to help speed up the process and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmasters lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with useful information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your Google Webmaster Tools account, you can use your information with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, you can add visitor tracking code to all of your pages in WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data automatically to other applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account and entering site data with Bing, use this information to integrate and automate traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers website owners 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 business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great 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 these features into your traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your social media accounts 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 and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site.
You should have pages set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up and syndicate your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add a feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your own RebelMouse social feed.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Global WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have specifically chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the list of update services entered into the Update Services field
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 …
(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 on this page can have an influence traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site to view the rest of the content from a partial feed, 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 check box is ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to instantly ping 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, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings)
Discussion
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 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
For a detailed tutorial on setting up WP permalinks, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress – Traffic Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add just about every type of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that improve traffic generation
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is guaranteed immunity from a cyber attack.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving improving how search engines like Google and Bing find, crawl and index your website …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress Plugin)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your website’s SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to index, it allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site with free or inexpensive plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins to choose from.
Most social share plugins allow you to choose which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress Theme Features – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that 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, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
Additional Features Of WordPress To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the situations that can damage your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online (or plan to), it’s important that your site complies with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Compliant?)
We have written a detailed article about why it’s important to have a legally compliant website here:
Post Tags And Categories
Categories and post tags help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.
(Categories help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s tags and categories should be set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phases.
When considering ways 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.
Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites find your web content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Configure Your Site’s 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching for your website type in the wrong web address or click on a hyperlink pointing to a page on your site that no longer exists, they will typically be greeted with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 page) …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your web server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do to generate more web traffic is post fresh content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some web developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next article in our WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This article is part of an tutorial series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress-driven website and proven web marketing strategies.
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