Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive visitors automatically to your site using WordPress.
In Part One of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to automatically bring more web traffic is post fresh content regularly!)
In Part Two, we focused on the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to get started 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 site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic system. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured in order to automatically drive new traffic when you publish fresh content on your site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With business getting ever more competitive worldwide, it’s worth looking into any and every advantage available to get better results online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website allows their business to get off to a flying start from the moment their website is launched.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
There is a significant 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 its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to describe the difference:
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 web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this here is a story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All is working according to schedule in the widget-making plant when everything suddenly comes to a stop.
No one can figure out what is wrong and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
The expert arrives shortly afterwards and, without saying a word, immediately walks towards the main control box. After staring at the wires and circuitry for no more than 2 minutes, the expert then takes out a tiny hammer and makes a very gentle tap near the left corner of the box.
Immediately, all machinery inside the workshop springs back to life.
The floor manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a service bill for $5,000.
Angrily, the factory manager picks up the phone and rings the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged so much for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors consistently to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one in the business had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to be compensated fairly for investing years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to immediately fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog set up so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other web 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 attracting new visitors to your website?)
Although the solution to many problems is often ridiculously easy in hindsight, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few settings. It involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add certain functionalities to your site.
- Which services you need to set up to achieve certain results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to make sure everything will function as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. This is because it’s not as simple as installing and configuring one or two plugins, configuring some options and settings in your dashboard area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all of this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your server, your WP site, and a number of third-party sites and/or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Configuring Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting 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 that affect how your site will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your website may attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like integrating spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess and error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites and/or online services.
Integration With External Accounts
The basic concept of adding external sites is that all of your content will be posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it will be automatically distributed to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you incorporate these external sites into your traffic system, content linked back to your website is automatically syndicated to these platforms. Your content and site will be given additional exposure to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the sites and online solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site to 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:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform 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 and entering site data, the details can be used to automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
After setting up your account, you can add tracking code to WordPress via plugins and feed data automatically to various other useful applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account and site details with Bing are set up, this information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress provides users with a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, 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 automated web traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic 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.
Once you have set up and configured everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and bring new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have profiles set up with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up and post your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we will review some of these tools in more detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level 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 site that lets you 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 visitors can follow your own RebelMouse account.
There are many different sites and platforms that can be added to your own web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site
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.
WordPress – Global Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As stated below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have specifically configured your site settings 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, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(Writing Settings – WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(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 on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to view the rest of the content from excerpts, 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 main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to ping 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, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings)
Discussion
Although this section is 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 Screen)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks Section)
The examples below show some of the ways permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks here: Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
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 website for handling 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, securing your website is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
More information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your web pages …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help increase traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your website’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you provide content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing to your site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social sharing features to your website with free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social sharing plugins allow you to specify 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 followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which users can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress – Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, some themes also give you options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) allow you to configure options and settings for improved traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing 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)
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Other Important Sections To Configure
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you are making money online, it’s important that your website stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online.
(Is Your Site Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article about adding legal pages to WordPress here:
Tags & Categories
Post categories and tags help to improve your site’s SEO, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help search engines better organize and index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s categories and tags should be reviewed and set up during the Website Planning Phases.
When configuring your website to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal results.
HTML Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover your web content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. HTML site maps are web pages that provide visitors with a logical map of how your content is structured, while XML sitemaps are mostly filled with code that only search bots can read. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just from 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 – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When visitors searching online for your site enter the wrong URL or click on an invalid hyperlink, they will typically be greeted with an error page (known as a 404 error page) …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found page)
A 404 page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up in your web server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your website has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then to automatically generate web traffic is post content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of skills and knowledge involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some web 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 section of our WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic sustainably with a WordPress-driven website and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
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