Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and 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 to attract more traffic is add web content regularly!)
In Part 2, 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 website, and what to do if your existing website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this section, we will discuss the configuration phase of this process. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site to automatically bring new visitors as you start to publish fresh content to your website.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
The ability to drive more traffic 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 advantage they can to get better results online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off to a flying start as soon as their website is launched.
The Configuration Stage Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to explain the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take additional work 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 running smoothly in the widget-making factory when all of a sudden, all machines grinds to a complete stop.
No one can figure out what is wrong and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert walks directly to the control box. After staring at the box for about 3 minutes, the expert then takes out a tiny little hammer and makes a single tap about two inches from the left-hand corner of the box.
Immediately, everything springs back to life.
The plant manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the factory manager receives an invoice for $5,000.
Bewildered, the manager picks up the phone and rings the expert. Why had they had been charged so much for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work? He then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive web traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production stopped working and no one in the factory floor was able to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to get paid fairly for years spent developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to immediately repair a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress web site set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other web properties would be instantly 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 website?)
While the solution to many problems is often quite simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than simply installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get certain functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up to get certain outcomes
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured to make sure processes will work how you have planned, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved. This is because it’s not as easy as installing a solution, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and so much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of a number of different parts such as your web server, your web site, and a number of third-party sites and services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we create a simple diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings and options in your hosting account that affect how your site will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic you can attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like integrating server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, 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 and services.
Third-Party Web Properties
The concept behind setting up external sites is that all content should be published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will automatically be syndicated to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external sites have been added to your setup, content pointing back to your website gets automatically fed to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social networks, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your business receives exposure online, helping you tap into new sources of traffic.
Some sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress settings to help save time and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with useful data, tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site data, this information can be used to automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up Google Analytics, you can add tracking code to all of your pages in WordPress via a simple plugin and feed data instantly to other online applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account and entering site details, this information can be used to automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers both the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social accounts set up before you can integrate these with 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 get new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have accounts and profiles set up with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social bookmarking 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 system and/or content syndication tools.
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your own RebelMouse website.
There are various sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your own web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As described below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the list of update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could impact 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 feature is ticked or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to instantly ping all the update services you have listed whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
Although discussion settings 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 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks Screen)
Here are some of the options for configuring your SEO-friendly URLs …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Setting Up Your WordPress Permalinks
Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is immune from cyber attacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
Go here to learn more:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(SEO plugins help increase traffic by improving your website’s ability to rank better in search engines)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find, crawl and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with members of their online communities can help boost traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing features to your site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are many free or inexpensive social sharing plugins to choose from.
Many social plugins allow you to specify which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring Settings – WordPress Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your website is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic – Additional Configuration Areas
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth 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 start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With The Law?)
To learn more about why it’s important to have a legally compliant website, go here:
WordPress Tags & Categories
WordPress tags and categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your web pages.
(WordPress categories help to improve your site’s SEO, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your site’s post categories and tags during the Website Planning Stage.
When considering ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits.
HTML 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 sites find more of your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, while an XML sitemap contains code that only search bots can read. Although search engines like Google can index your site 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.
404 Page – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When online users type in the wrong web address or click on a dead link, they are presented with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your server, there are several WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your site expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do is post new content on a consistent basis to begin bringing new traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some web professionals months to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read more, click on the link below:
This article is part of an article series aimed at helping website owners learn how to grow their business using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy and quick to implement.
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