Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to automatically start generating new web traffic is publish content on a consistent basis!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase. 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 website, and what to do if your site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where 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. We explain how to configure a WordPress site so you can automatically drive new visitors when you publish new content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business getting ever more competitive, it’s worth learning about any advantage available to get better results online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage. Having an expertly configured WordPress site gives your business a flying start and an immediate advantage online.
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 developer but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s one way to explain the main difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence plus an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and an 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 me illustrate this point with a joke.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All was going fine in the gizmo-making manufacturing plant when suddenly, production came to a halt.
No one could figure out what has happened and so the manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrived and, without saying a word, walked immediately to the control box. After staring silently at the circuit board for less than 3 minutes or so, the expert then took out a little hammer and made a single tap about one and half inches from the left-hand edge of the control unit.
Immediately, everything returned to normal.
The plant manager was greatly relieved as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The manager picked up the phone and dialed the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for so little time delivering such a minimal amount of work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived and was placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors consistently to their sites.
How much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one in the business was able to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to ask to be compensated fairly for investing years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to fix a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WP blog configured so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social media and dozens of other online properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
While the solution to many problems is often quite simple in hindsight, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than simply installing a website and configuring some basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party accounts need to be set up to get certain results
- Which settings you need to configure in order to make sure things will work as expected, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. It’s not just about installing a plugin, clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your server, your WordPress site, and a number of external sites and/or online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we create a simple flowchart showing the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your web-hosting account specifically for handling web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your website will attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, 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.
External Web Properties & Services – Configuration
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all of your content should be posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it will automatically get syndicated to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external sites to your traffic system, content linking back to your website will be automatically posted to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social sites, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your site will be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the external sites and solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to 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 Search Console
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with essential data, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your account with Google Search Console, use this information with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic performance, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add visitor tracking information to WordPress using a simple plugin and send data instantly to various other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account and entering site details, you can use this information with traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress provides users with a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your automated traffic system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media pages and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social accounts set up before you can configure these as part of 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 drive new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have profiles set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can set up and syndicate your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute your content to social networks)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your page.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications you can incorporate into your own web traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
Configuring Your WordPress Site
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress administration 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 …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As stated in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have intentionally configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services text box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is available …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section and WordPress will do the rest …
(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
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 web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears 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 site to get 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 main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to automatically ping your list of update services when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Global Settings – 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 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 Screen)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your post permalinks …
(Configuring post permalinks)
To learn more about setting up WP permalinks, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring WordPress Traffic Generation Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your website.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to attacks from hackers and botnets.
To learn more, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website …
(WordPress Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your website’s search engine optimization. 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 lets you specify how to present your content in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site with WordPress plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to select which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes can be configured for improved traffic results)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure For Better Traffic
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you are making money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website complies with government laws and regulations.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
To learn more about how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your website or blog, go here:
Post Tags And Post Categories
WordPress categories & tags help search engines index your web pages, which helps to increase traffic.
(Categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s categories and tags during the Website Planning Phases.
When configuring your website or blog 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 and results.
Visitor Site Map
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching online for your website type in the wrong URL or click on hyperlinks pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they will typically be presented with a 404 page …
(A 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up in your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to automatically begin bringing new traffic is publish new content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many website professionals a long time to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is addressed in the next section of our WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To keep reading this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of an tutorial series aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business and drive traffic sustainably using a WordPress website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
Would You Like To Get Automatically Notified When New WordPress Tutorials Get Published? Then Subscribe To WPCompendium.org!
***
"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
***