Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a site into an automated traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this 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 web site, all you have to do is add fresh content regularly to automatically start generating new traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at critical setup decisions. We helped you understand 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 site, and what to do if your existing website was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site to automatically start bringing web traffic whenever you publish web content on your website.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business getting ever more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth exploring every opportunity you can to increase your own competitiveness online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand is a tremendous competitive advantage. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website means having a significant advantage from the word “go”.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s one way to describe the differences:
With a WordPress site 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 tool!)
Not only is extra work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
To illustrate this point here’s an anecdote.
A Semi-True Story …
All was humming along in the widget factory when the machines suddenly stopped.
As no one could figure out what happened, the plant manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately headed towards the control box. After staring silently at the box for no more than 5 minutes or so, the expert then produced a teensy-weensy hammer from his tool belt and made a very gentle tap near the bottom-left edge of the box.
Immediately, everything sprang to life.
The manager was relieved as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager received a service bill for $5,000.
The factory manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged such a ludicrous fee for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the equipment stopped functioning and no one on the factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for having spent years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your web site fully configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and search engines, social sites and dozens of other traffic-generating 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 site?)
While many experts often make difficult things look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than simply installing a website and configuring a few internal settings. It involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up and activate to get specific results
- Which settings you need to configure to ensure that everything will work as expected, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing a piece of software, configuring some options and settings in your dashboard area or clicking on a button or two … it’s all of this and so much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your server, your web site, and a number of external sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we create a simplified diagram of the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these areas in more detail.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your server that affect how your website will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your website may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like implementing server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to set up and configure various third-party sites or online solutions.
External Sites
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all of your content will get posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it will be automatically distributed to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external services to your network, content linked back to your website will be automatically added to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your site will then be given exposure to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of these external sites will need to have accounts 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, here are just some of the accounts you will need to have set up before configuring your settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmasters lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of important information, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account with Google Webmaster Tools, this information can be used with web traffic settings 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 behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, visitor tracking information can be easily integrated with WordPress using a simple plugin and and sent 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 Search Console. After setting up your account and entering site data with Bing, you can use this information with traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to grow a professional business presence online.
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 at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already 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 accounts and get new traffic to your site.
You should have accounts and profiles set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online technology platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse account.
There are various sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress 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 key areas.
WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress admin area includes a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Section)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally 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 section
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is available …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified 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
***
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 in this section 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 shows up in RSS readers and blog post digests, 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 main setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to automatically ping the update services list when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings)
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 sites linked to from your content, 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)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your site’s permalink URLs …
(Configuring permalinks)
We have created a detailed tutorial about using permalinks here: Configuring Your WordPress Permalinks
WordPress Traffic Plugins – Configuration
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add just about every type of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is completely immune from being attacked by hackers.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and bots.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with their social networks can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website using free or inexpensive plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Most social share plugins allow you to choose which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, 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 WordPress Traffic Features In 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 site, many themes also include options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With many themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your content is as easy as clicking a few buttons to configure your settings and enable the function …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Areas
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic blueprint configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you make money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, go here:
Post Tags & Post Categories
WordPress post tags and post categories help search engines index your pages, which improves traffic.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s post tags and categories during the Website Planning Stage.
When configuring your web site to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
Visitor Site Map
A site map that displays all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover more of your web content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Configure Your Site’s 404 Error Page
When online visitors type in the wrong URL or click on a dead hyperlink, they are presented with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up on your web server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do then to automatically begin attracting more traffic is publish great content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different components and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration process can take some website 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 WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read more, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven online marketing methods.
Subscribe Using The Form Below And Get Notified Of New WordPress Tutorials!
***
"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
***