Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive traffic automatically to your site using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to automatically begin bringing new web traffic is post new content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your website was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration phase of the traffic system. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to ensure that web traffic will automatically start flowing just by posting content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With competition becoming increasingly more difficult businesses are looking for any advantage they believe will help them increase their competitiveness online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage. An expertly configured website gives your business a flying start and a significant advantage online.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website 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 is a simple way to understand the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence plus an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only is more labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
Allow me to illustrate this point with a little story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Things are moving along in the widget assembly line when all of a sudden, everything stops.
As no one can figure out what’s gone wrong, the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
Soon afterward, the expert arrives and, without saying a word, immediately heads towards the main control box. After staring at the circuit board for less than 3 minutes, the expert then takes out a teeny-weeny hammer and makes a very gentle tap about 1 inch from the right edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything starts working again.
The manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Furious, the factory manager calls the expert. Why had he charged them so much for less than 5 minutes work? He then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives and is placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive new visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to get paid fairly for spending years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to assess and repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP blog configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networks and dozens of other online properties would be immediately 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?)
Although the solution to many problems often seems ridiculously easy in hindsight, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to work things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to get certain functionalities on your site.
- Which services need to be set up and activated to get specific results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to ensure that things work exactly as you have envisioned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite involved. It’s not as simple as installing and configuring one or two plugins, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of many parts such as your server, your site, and a number of external sites and online services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simplified flowchart of the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a better look at what’s involved.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking settings in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic you will attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like configuring spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites and services.
External Sites And Services – Configuration
The idea behind setting up external sites is that all of your content is posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it then gets distributed automatically to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external platforms to your configuration, content with links pointing back to your site will get automatically added to these platforms. Your content receives increased exposure online, helping you tap into a whole new audience and source of traffic.
Some sites will need to be set up before configuring your site to help 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 before configuring your site’s settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with essential information, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site details with Google Webmasters are set up, your details can be used to automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic results, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account, you can add tracking information to WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data automatically to various other online applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account and site data have been set up, use this information to integrate and automate web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers users the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your social media accounts before you can 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 attract new traffic to your site.
You should set up accounts and profile pages with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select those that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(You can post your content to loads of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online web platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add a feed from your WordPress site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your page.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your web 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 external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
Configuring Your WordPress Site
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Global Settings
By default, your WordPress administration area includes a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As stated below the Update Services 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, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
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 readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to read the rest of the content from a partial feed, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to automatically ping various update services when a new post is 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 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 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 Section)
Permalinks
Permalinks enable your site to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks Screen)
Here are some of the options for configuring your permalink URLs …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site 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 ignore the importance of website security.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and botnets.
More info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages easily indexable …
(WordPress SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your website’s SEO. 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 presented to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you provide content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are many free or inexpensive social sharing plugins to choose from.
Many social plugins let you specify which social 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 linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring WordPress Traffic Generation Theme Features
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 design and layout aspects of your site, some themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your site is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Other Important Sections To Configure
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can cause serious damage to your business as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do business online (or plan to), it’s important that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
WordPress Post Tags & Categories
WordPress post tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your web pages.
(WordPress post categories help search engines index your pages, which improves traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s post tags and post categories should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stages.
When configuring your website or blog to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and categories you have set up.
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 discover more of your web content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Forget To Configure It!
When online users type in the wrong web address or click on an invalid link, they are greeted with an error – page not found message …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 Not Found error page can redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up on your server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do is post fresh content consistently to start driving web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(Traffic System – 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 aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is addressed in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy to implement.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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