Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your website into an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is publish content consistently to automatically generate web traffic!)
In Part Two, we focused on critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. We explain why an expertly configured site is different. You will also understand how much work is required to make sure that when all is fully configured, you can automatically start getting new visitors when you start to add fresh content to your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business becoming increasingly more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth exploring every advantage that can help you increase your own competitiveness online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge advantage over other competitors. For business owners, having an expertly configured website means having a significant competitive advantage from the word “go”.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
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 builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to explain the main difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a joke.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Things are going just fine in the gizmo-making factory when everything comes to a sudden stop.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the manager decides to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately heads to the main control box. After staring at the circuit board for what seems like 3 minutes, the expert then takes out a teensy-weensy little hammer from his shirt pocket and makes a single tap about 1 cm from the right-hand edge of the box.
Immediately, the whole workshop lights up and springs to life once more.
The floor manager is delighted as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager receives a request for payment of services rendered for the sum of $5,000.
With great anger, the manager calls the expert. Why had they had been charged so much for less than 5 minutes work? He then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive web traffic consistently to their sites.
How much money did the widget factory stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one on the business had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for years spent building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog set up and configured so all you had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other online properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
While the solution to many problems is often ridiculously simple in hindsight, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to work things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring settings for a client. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install to add certain functionalities to your site.
- Which services you need to set up to achieve desired outcomes
- Which options you need to configure to make sure everything functions as you have imagined, 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 challenging, it can be quite involved. This is because it’s not just about installing a piece of software, tweaking some settings in your dashboard area or clicking a button … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration stage is a complex process that involves your web server, your website or blog, and various third-party sites …
(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 simplified diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes. What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings and options in your server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web hosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your website may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like integrating spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites and online services.
3rd-Party Accounts Configuration
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all of your content is published from a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it gets automatically distributed to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external sites into your network, content linked back to your site will get automatically fed to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your site will be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of these external sites will need to be set up before configuring your site’s 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:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console)
Google Search Console lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with useful data, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
Once your Google Webmasters account has been set up, you can use your information with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
After setting up your account and site data, you can add your account code to all of your pages in WordPress using a simple Google Analytics plugin and send data instantly to various other useful applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account and site details with Bing Webmaster Tools have been set up, use the details to automate traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, 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 online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need your social media and social bookmarking 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 pages and drive new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have accounts and pages set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick the ones that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we will look at some of these tools in more detail further below and in the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to 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 visitors can follow your own RebelMouse page.
There are many different sites and platforms 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 third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect 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 automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Global 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 or your webmaster have purposely chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services box
By default, this section contains only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(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 in this section can influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could affect 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 excerpts, 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 check box is enabled or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to notify all the update services you have listed whenever new posts get 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
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 Section)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow your site to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways your permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
If you need help setting up WordPress permalinks, refer to this tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality to your site, including traffic generation.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic to your site
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, web security is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to hackers and bots.
Go here for more info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your site more search engine friendly)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines 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 GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social features to your site with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website with WordPress plugins.
Many social plugins allow you to specify which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress Traffic Theme Features – Configuration
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 layout and design of your website, many themes also give you built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) allow you to configure settings for better traffic results)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing features to your site is as easy as clicking a few buttons to enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
Additional Configuration Steps For WordPress
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website 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 cause serious damage to your business when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
For a detailed article on how to quickly add legal pages to your site, see this article:
Categories & Tags
Post categories & tags help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.
(Post categories help search engines classify and index your pages, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and post categories should be reviewed and set up during the Website Planning Process.
When considering ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
Add A Site Map
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications discover your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although Google will index your pages just from 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.
Your Site’s 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching for your site enter the wrong URL or click on a link pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they are greeted with an error – page not found message …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up on your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do then is post web content consistently to automatically start generating new web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The skills and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many web developers a long time to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is addressed in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This article is part of an tutorial series designed to help site owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress website or blog and proven web marketing methods.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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