Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this article 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 website or blog, all you have to do to start generating traffic is post content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will look at the configuration stage of this process. We will explain why an expertly configured WordPress site is different. You will also discover how much work needs to be done to ensure that when all is set up and configured, you can get visitors automatically simply by posting content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as their greatest challenge online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive and are exploring every advantage they believe will get better results online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage. An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a significant advantage from the very start.
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 builder but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here is a simple way to explain the differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only is extra labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
To illustrate this point here is a little story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything was humming along in the gizmo factory when things ground to a sudden halt.
As no one could figure out what happened, the plant manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and, without saying a word, walked directly to the main control box. After staring silently at the electronic components for what seemed like 2 minutes, the expert then took out a little hammer from his utility belt and made a gentle tap near the bottom-right edge of the box.
Immediately, all machines inside the factory floor began working again.
The floor manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager received an invoice for the sum of $5,000.
The factory manager picked up the phone and dialed the expert, demanding to know why he had charged them so much for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work and promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to get paid fairly for investing years developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your site set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social followers from Facebook and Twitter 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 driving traffic to your website?)
Although the solution to many problems often seems ridiculously simple once implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts you need to set up to achieve desired outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure in order to ensure that processes will run the way you have envisioned, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved and time-consuming. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a piece of software, clicking on a button or two … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of a number of different parts including your server, your web site, and a number of external sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we create a simplified flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these steps in more detail.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes. What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your web server that affect how your website will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web-hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your site can attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both good and unwanted traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like implementing spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up 404 error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these, the next step is to configure various external sites or online solutions.
External Accounts
The purpose of adding external sites is that all of your content should be published from a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, be automatically distributed to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external services into your setup, content with links pointing back to your website will get automatically fed to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social sites, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your content and website benefits from added exposure online, helping you tap into new sources of traffic.
Some external sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site’s settings to 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 WordPress settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmasters)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with useful information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account, this information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
After setting up your account, account information can be integrated with WordPress using a simple plugin and instantly fed to various other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account and site data with Bing Webmaster Tools have been set up, you can use this information with web traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers website owners the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to grow a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your automated web traffic system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various 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 and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have set up profiles with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick the ones that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
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 RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse page.
There are many different sites and platforms you can incorporate into your own web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress – Global Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings section that allows you to modify 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 Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(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 or your webmaster have purposely configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is available …
(Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in 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 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 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 instantly notify various update services when new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(WordPress 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 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalinks
Permalinks enable WordPress to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your permalink URLs …
(Configuring post permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, go here: How To Configure WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Traffic Generation Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can improve traffic generation
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No web site is immune from cyber-attacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and bots.
To learn more, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help increase traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your site’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also lets you specify how to display your content to Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing features to your website easily with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can add social sharing features to your site easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social sharing plugins allow you to choose which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress – Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring layout and design elements of your site, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a free theme) allow you to configure options and settings for improved traffic results)
With many themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic Configuration – Other Areas
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do business online, it’s important that your website is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Compliant?)
For a detailed article about the importance of having a compliant website, see this article:
WordPress Categories And Tags
WordPress post categories & tags help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which helps you get more traffic.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and categories should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags that have been set up.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A visitor site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites find your website 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 different things. Only search engines can understand XML sitemaps. Although Google will index your site just using 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 can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – An Additional Source Of Web Traffic!
When online users type in the wrong URL into their web browser or click on a link pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they are presented with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 error page) …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up in your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do to attract more web traffic is publish new content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The skills and expertise required to perform this process can take many website professionals months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as can be automated. This step is explained in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Section 3
To keep reading about this topic, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive tutorial series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic sustainably using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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