Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a site into an automated web traffic machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to drive more web traffic is publish web content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we focused on critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this section of the series, we discuss the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that web traffic will automatically start flowing simply by adding content to your website.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business getting so much more competitive, it’s worth learning about any advantage that can help you increase your own competitiveness online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand is a huge competitive advantage. For business owners, an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start as soon as their website is launched.
The Configuration Stage Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to understand the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take more labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a little story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All was moving along in the gizmo-making assembly line when things suddenly came to a stop.
As no one could figure out what went wrong, the floor manager decided to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately went to the control box. After staring at the electronic components for less than 2 minutes, the expert then produced a teeny-weeny hammer and made a gentle tap near the right edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything returned to normal.
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 an invoice for $5,000.
The manager rang back the expert, demanding to know why they were charged so much for less than five minutes work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to demand fair compensation for having spent years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP website set up and configured so all you had to do is publish new content and search engines, social sites and dozens of other web properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
While many experts often make complex solutions look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to work things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring settings for clients. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up and activate to achieve desired outcomes
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to ensure that everything will work to plan, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite involved and time-consuming. It’s not as simple as installing and configuring a solution, configuring some settings in your dashboard area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web server, your website or blog, and a number of third-party sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your webhosting account specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your website may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to set up and configure various external sites.
Integration With External Solutions
The basic idea of adding external sites is that all content should be posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, get automatically distributed to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external sites have been added to your traffic network, content linked back to your site gets automatically posted to these platforms. Your business will then be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some third-party sites and online solutions will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site to help 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 site’s settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmasters lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential information, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account is with Google are set up, you can use this information to integrate and automate web traffic 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 website’s performance, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data have been set up, account information can be added to WordPress using a simple plugin and automatically sent to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account and site details have been set up, you can use the account information to automate traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this 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 and social bookmarking accounts and get new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social media and social bookmarking accounts 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 sites and get new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have accounts and profiles set up with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose those that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(There are loads of social sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging web platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
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 page.
There are various solutions that can be added to your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website Or Blog
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 of the important areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings section that allows you to set up 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 indexing, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains an important and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Section)
As stated in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, 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 listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section …
(WordPress lets you 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 in this section can 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 readers and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site to view the rest of the content from excerpts, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The most important setting here as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to automatically notify your list of update services when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion
Although discussion settings 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow your site to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks Screen)
Here are some of the options for configuring your post permalinks …
(Configuring permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, go here: How To Set Up Your WordPress Permalinks
WordPress Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add just about every kind 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
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with 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 simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your website or blog.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and bots.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by improving your website’s ability to rank better in search engines)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your website’s search engine optimization. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google 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 visitors to easily share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website using WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site with free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social share plugins let you select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress Theme Settings – Configuration
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 design and layout aspects of your website, many themes also give you built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your content is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons and enabling the feature …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Configuring Other WordPress Areas
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you make money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog, refer to this article:
Tags And Categories
Categories and tags help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which helps to increase traffic.
(Categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your website.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s tags and categories should be set up during the Website Planning Stages.
When considering ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A site map that displays all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. HTML site maps are web pages that link to all other content on your site and provide users with a an understandable representation of how your content is structured, while XML sitemaps are mostly just a bunch of code that only search engines can interpret. Although search engines like Google can index your site just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – Don’t Forget To Configure It!
When online visitors enter the wrong URL or click on a hyperlink pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they will typically be greeted with a 404 page …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error 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 error page can be set up in your server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then is post new content on a regular basis to automatically attract new web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform the configuration process can take many website professionals months 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 addressed in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Three
To keep reading this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic organically using a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy to implement.
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