Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this 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 publish new content on a regular basis to drive more web traffic!)
In Part Two, we focused on the setup phase. We helped you understand 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 existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration stage of the traffic system. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site so you can automatically begin attracting web traffic simply by adding web content on your web site.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Also, the business landscape is becoming ever more competitive and businesses are exploring any advantage they can that can help you improve their results online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage. For businesses, an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the very start.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here’s a simple way to understand the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is extra labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a little story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All was going well in the widget-making workshop when everything ground to a sudden halt.
As no one could figure out what was wrong, the plant manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
The expert arrived shortly afterwards and, without saying a word, immediately walked towards the main control box. After staring silently at the circuit board for 3 minutes or so, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy hammer and made a single tap about one inch from the left corner of the control unit.
Immediately, the machinery sprang to life.
The plant manager was delighted as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager received a request for payment of services rendered for $5,000.
The manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why they were being charged so much for less than 5 minutes work and promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the plant 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 immediately fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WP blog set up and configured so all you have to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other web properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
While the solution to many problems often seems quite easy once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which services you need to set up and activate to achieve specific outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured in order to ensure that things work to plan, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite complicated. It’s not as easy as installing a plugin, configuring some options and settings in your admin area or clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of different parts including your web server, your web site, and various third-party sites and services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we create a simplified diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine these steps in more detail.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your webhosting account that affect how you will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your website may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for both good and unwanted traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like configuring spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After your server settings have been checked and configured, the next step is to configure various external sites and/or online services.
External Accounts
The basic idea of adding external sites is that all of your content is posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it then gets distributed automatically to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you incorporate these external sites into your traffic system, content linking back to your site will be automatically fed to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content will receive additional exposure online, helping you tap into a whole new audience and traffic source.
Some third-party sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress 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:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential data, tools and reports about your website.
Once your Google Webmasters account and site data have been set up, you can use the account information with traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your up your account and entered your site data, you can add traffic tracking information to WordPress via plugins and feed data automatically to many other online applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account with Bing, you can use this information to automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) 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 version if you plan to build a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your web traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media pages and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need your social 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 and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have pages set up with all of the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can You can post your content to many social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we will look at some of these tools in more detail during the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news 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 sites and platforms you can incorporate into your traffic blueprint. Please feel free to 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 accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
Configuring WordPress For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its 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 global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and often 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 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 text area
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 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 …
(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 your content gets seen by readers 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 in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog 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 your traffic system is concerned, however, the most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically ping all the update services you have listed whenever 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 Screen)
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 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks Section)
The examples below show some of the ways your permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
If you need help setting up permalinks, refer to this tutorial: Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is safe from cyber-attacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to hackers and bots.
Go here for more details:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(Yoast SEO – WP SEO Plugin)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your website’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with others can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social sharing features to your site easily using WordPress plugins)
You can add social sharing features to your site easily with free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social share plugins let you choose which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
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 layout and design aspects of your site, some themes also include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With many themes, adding social sharing buttons to your site is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic Configuration – Additional Steps
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online (or are planning to), you need to make sure that your site complies with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
Categories & Post Tags
Post categories & post tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your web pages.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your website’s categories and tags earlier on, during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the tags and categories that have been set up.
Add A WordPress 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 applications find your website content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, whereas an XML sitemap is mostly just a bunch of code that only search engines can understand. Although Google can index your site just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin 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.
404 Page – Another Source Of Traffic!
When visitors searching online for your site type in the wrong web address or click on a link pointing to a page on your website that no longer exists, they are presented with a 404 error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up in your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do is publish great content regularly to generate more traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform the configuration process can take many website developers a long time to acquire.
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 article in the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To keep reading this article, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business using a WordPress website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy and quick to implement.
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