Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this article series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to automatically generate web traffic is publish web content regularly!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the blueprint. We explained the best way to start 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 existing site was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will discuss the configuration phase of this process. The focus of this section is to help you understand what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different from a professionally configured one, and how much work needs to be done to ensure that when everything is set up and configured, you will get new traffic automatically simply by consistently adding new content on your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as their greatest challenge online. With business becoming increasingly more competitive, it’s worth learning about any advantage that can help you get better results online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage. For business owners, an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start as soon as their site is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
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 its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to describe the key difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is more work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Allow me to illustrate this with a little story.
A Semi-True Story …
Things were going fine in the widget-making workshop when all of a sudden, production stopped.
As no one could figure out what went wrong, the floor manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and, without uttering a word, headed immediately towards the main control box. After staring silently at the circuit board for 3 minutes or less, the expert then produced a teeny-weeny hammer from his pocket and made a single tap near the top-right corner of the control unit.
Immediately, everything came back to life.
The plant manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager received an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
The factory manager picked up the phone and called the expert, demanding to know why the expert had charged them such an exorbitant fee for less than five minutes work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived and was placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to ask to be compensated fairly for years spent acquiring the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately fix a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WordPress blog set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social sites and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
Although experts often make complicated things look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than simply installing a website and configuring a few internal settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which third-party services need to be set up to achieve specific outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured in order to ensure that everything functions as planned, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and 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 one or two plugins, clicking a button … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase is a process that involves your web server, your website or blog, and various external sites and online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram of the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a brief look at what’s involved.
Configuring The Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your web server that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your site can attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like implementing spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After your web server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step is to configure various third-party sites.
External Services
The purpose of adding external sites is that all content gets published to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it gets automatically distributed to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external services have been added to your network, content linking back to your website gets automatically fed to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and website will be exposed to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some of these sites and online solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your settings 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 before configuring your site:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with important information, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your Google Webmaster Tools account and site details have been set up, 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 website’s performance, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details have been set up, you can add your account code to WordPress using a plugin and send data instantly to various other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account is with Bing are set up, you can use the details with traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, 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 grow a professional online 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 explain how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your social accounts 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 bring new traffic to your site.
Set up accounts with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose those that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your website.
There are many different solutions you can add to your own web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Site 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 of the important areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
By default, your WordPress dashboard area includes a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and frequently overlooked traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of update services entered into the Update Services field
By default, 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 of update services to this section …
(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 on this page can have an influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website 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 traffic is concerned, however, the most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to ping your list of update services whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion
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 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the ways your site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using permalinks here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
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 WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is completely immune from being hacked.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to bots and hackers.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web content more indexable …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site with WordPress plugins.
Many social sharing plugins let you choose which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your website, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes allow you to configure settings for improved traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic System – Additional Configuration Steps
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you make money online, you need to make sure that your website is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, go here:
Post Categories And Post Tags
Post categories and tags help search engines better classify and index your web pages, which helps to increase traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your web pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post categories and tags should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Stages.
When configuring your web site to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A site map that displays all of your posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites find your website content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. HTML site maps are web pages that link to all other content on your site and provide readers with a visual map of how your content is structured, whereas XML sitemaps contain code that only search engines can interpret. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – Don’t Forget This!
When online users type in the wrong web address or click on a hyperlink pointing to a page on your website that no longer exists, they will normally be greeted with a 404 error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect 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 page can be set up in your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do to automatically start generating web traffic is publish web content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of different elements and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some website developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is explained in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping site owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-driven website and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
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