Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your site into an automated traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is add fresh content on a consistent basis to bring more traffic!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase of the automation process. We helped you understand 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 website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration phase of this process. You will understand what makes an expertly configured site different. You will also understand how much work needs to be done to make sure that when all is set up and configured, you can automatically attract new visitors just by posting fresh content on your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With competition making business survival increasingly more difficult businesses are exploring every advantage they believe will help them get better results online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage over other competitors. For businesses, having an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start from the moment their site is launched.
The Configuration Phase Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to understand 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 and an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does it take more work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
To illustrate this point here’s a joke.
A Semi-True Story …
Things were moving along in the gizmo assembly line when all of a sudden, all machinery stopped.
As no one could figure out what happened, the manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert headed immediately towards the control box. After staring at the board for 3 minutes, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy hammer from his shirt pocket and made a single tap about three inches from the left-hand side of the box.
Immediately, the plant started working as before.
The floor manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager received a request of payment for services rendered totalling $5,000.
The factory manager picked up the phone and called the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged such a ridiculously high fee for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic consistently to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to be compensated fairly for years spent acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to quickly fix a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your website configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social followers from Facebook and LinkedIn and dozens of other traffic-generating web 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 attracting new visitors to your site?)
While experts often make complex situations and problems look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than installing a website and configuring some basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which services you need to set up to achieve desired outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure to ensure that things will work as expected, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved and time-consuming. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing a piece of software, configuring some settings in your dashboard area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your server, your WordPress site, and a number of external sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your site will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites and/or online services.
External Web Properties & Solutions – Configuration
The idea behind choosing external sites is that all content will be posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external services have been added to your configuration, content linked back to your site will be automatically syndicated to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social sites, even to users of the platform itself. Your content and site will then receive increased exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.
Some sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress settings to help speed up the 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 Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Search Console lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of essential information, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site data with Google have been set up, you can use the information to integrate and automate traffic-related settings 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 behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add visitor tracking code to WordPress via a simple Google Analytics plugin and send data automatically to various other applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account and entering site details, the details can be used to automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated web traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need your social media accounts set up before you can integrate these with your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and drive new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have accounts and profiles set up with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are many social sites you can set up accounts with and post your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we cover some of these tools in greater detail further below and in the Automation phase).
(There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your website.
There are various solutions you can incorporate 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.
After you have configured your web server and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
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 specifically chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section displays only one entry …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(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 Settings
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 traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website to view the rest of the content from a partial feed, 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 check box is enabled or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to notify various update services whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit 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 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks Section)
Here are some of the ways permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: How To Configure Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help your site generate more traffic
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with the effects of 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 cannot ignore the importance of securing your websites.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to attacks from hackers and botnets.
Go here for more info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving improving the way search engines like Google find, crawl and index your web pages …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO Plugin)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social plugins let you choose which social sites your content can be shared 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 sections on your pages which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress – Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that 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 give you built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as clicking a few buttons to enable the function …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Additional Configuration Areas For WordPress Traffic Automation
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle 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, it’s important that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?)
For a detailed article about the importance of having a legally compliant website, go here:
WordPress Tags And Post Categories
Categories and tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your website.
(Categories help search engines classify and index your website, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your site’s post categories and tags during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post categories and tags have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Add A Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites discover more of your web 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 things. Although Google can index your site just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Configure Your WordPress 404 Page Not Found
When online visitors type in the wrong URL into their web browser or click on a dead hyperlink, they are greeted with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your web server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your website has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do to automatically start generating new traffic is add web content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration phase of the traffic automation process can take many web developers a long time 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 covered in the next article in our 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 you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-driven website and proven online marketing strategies.
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"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
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