Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a site into an automated web traffic generating machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is add web content consistently to automatically attract more traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase of this process. 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 site, and what to do if your existing website was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. You will understand why an expertly configured WordPress site is different than a professionally configured one. You will also understand how much work needs to be done to ensure that when everything is fully set up and configured, new web traffic will automatically start flowing simply by publishing new content on your website.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With competition becoming progressively tougher businesses are exploring any and every advantage they can that can help you get better results online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge competitive advantage. With an expertly configured WordPress site, your business has an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
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 take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here’s one way to describe the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
Let me illustrate this point with an amusing little story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All is running smoothly in the widget assembly workshop when production suddenly stops.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
The expert arrives within 30 minutes and, without uttering a word, heads immediately towards the main control box. After staring silently at the board for 5 minutes, the expert then produces a teensy-weensy hammer from his tool box and makes a gentle tap about three cm from the left-hand side of the control unit.
Immediately, everything begins working as before.
The plant manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a request for payment of services rendered for $5,000.
Angry and confused, the factory manager dials the expert. Why were they expected to pay such a ludicrous fee for less than 5 minutes work? He then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives and is placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors consistently to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor was able to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to ask to be compensated fairly for years spent building up the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to assess and repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a web site fully set up and configured so all you had to do is publish new content 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 the solution to many problems may seem ridiculously simple in hindsight, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services need to be set up to get certain outcomes
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure in order to make sure things will work to plan, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite involved and complicated. It’s not just about installing and configuring a plugin, configuring some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of various different components such as your web hosting server, your site, and a number of external sites and services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we create a simple diagram of the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved.
Configuring The Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for website installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your web server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your website will attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for both bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like implementing spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess and 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step is to configure various third-party sites.
Integration With External Web Properties
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all content gets posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it gets automatically distributed to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external sites have been added to your network, content with links pointing back to your site is automatically added to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your business will be given additional exposure to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of these third-party sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings to help save time and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts before configuring your WordPress site’s settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of essential data, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account has been with Google have been set up, use this information with web traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrers, etc.
After setting up your account, traffic monitoring code can be added to all of your web pages in WordPress via any of several Google Analytics plugins and instantly sent to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account and entering site data, you can use the details with traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers website owners 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 online presence for your business.
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 traffic generation system in the next installment of this article 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 your various social media 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 accounts and drive new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and pages set up with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add a feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your social feed.
There are many different platforms that can be incorporated into your own traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global WordPress Settings
Your WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As described 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 section
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 …
(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 Settings
This section affects how visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your content 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 most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to instantly ping various update services whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
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 sites 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)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways your permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using permalinks here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress Plugin Settings – Configuration
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your site is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
For more information, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web content easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your website’s SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your site’s SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to find, classify and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with others 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 sharing to their website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Most social sharing plugins let you select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring design and layout elements of your website, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Sections
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you are making money online, you need to make sure that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations.
(Is Your Site Legally Compliant?)
To learn more about how to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog, see this article:
Post Tags & Categories
WordPress post tags and categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your pages.
(Post categories help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which improves traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and post categories should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the tags and categories that have been set up.
Add A Site Map
A visitor site map that displays all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover more of your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. HTML site maps are web pages that provide users with a an understandable map of how your content is structured, while XML sitemaps are mostly just a bunch of code that only search engines can read. Although search engines like Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Your WordPress 404 Page
When online users enter the wrong URL into their browser or click on hyperlinks pointing to destinations on your website that no longer exist, they are greeted with an error – page not found message …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to funnel traffic to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found 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 plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do to automatically attract more traffic is post great content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform this process can take many web developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Section 3
To keep reading this article, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help website owners learn how to grow their business online and drive traffic organically using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy 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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