Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a website into an automated traffic generating machine using WordPress.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to drive web traffic is post fresh content on a regular basis!)
In Part 2, we looked at critical setup decisions. 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 site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this article, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that new traffic will automatically start flowing just by consistently posting new content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive worldwide and are looking for every advantage available to get better results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge competitive advantage. An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a flying start and an immediate advantage online.
The Configuration Stage Is What Makes The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here’s one way to understand the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a little story.
Knowing Where To Tap
Everything was going well in the widget-making workshop when all of a sudden, production came to a complete stop.
As no one could figure out what happened, the manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and, without uttering a word, headed immediately towards the control box. After staring at the control unit for less than 2 minutes, the expert then produced a teeny-weeny hammer and made a single tap about one inch from the bottom-left edge of the box.
Immediately, everything began to work once more.
The floor manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager received a request of payment for services for $5,000.
The manager rang back the expert, demanding to know why the expert had charged them such a large amount of money for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one on the business was able to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for investing years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your website configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other web properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
Although the solution to many challenges is often ridiculously easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts you need to set up and activate to get certain outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure in order to ensure that things will work as expected, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. This is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a piece of software, tweaking some settings in your dashboard area or clicking on a button or two … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web server, your site, and a number of external sites and/or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a better look at what’s involved.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your web server that affect how you will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your website may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for good and unwanted traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like configuring spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites and/or online services.
External Sites
The idea behind adding external sites is that all of your content should be posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, be automatically distributed to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After adding these external services to your network, content linking back to your site will get automatically published on these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social sites, even to users of the platform itself. Your content and site will be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the external sites and solutions will need to be set up before configuring your settings to speed up the configuration process and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
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 information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site details, use the information to automate web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, traffic monitoring code can be added to all of your web pages in WordPress via a simple Google Analytics plugin used with other 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 the information with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, 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 build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your web traffic generation system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social media and social bookmarking 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 sites and drive new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have set up profiles with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can You can syndicate your content to loads of social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick the ones that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator 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 users can follow your own RebelMouse website.
There are many different sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your own web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Global WordPress Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As described 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 prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section …
(You can 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 visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site to get 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 enabled or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to automatically notify all the update services you have listed 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 …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
Although discussion settings are mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to blogs 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways your permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
To learn more about setting up WP permalinks, go here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
WordPress Traffic Generation Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that affect traffic generation
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is safe from being attacked by hackers.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to hackers and bots.
Go here for more information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages easily indexable …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO Plugin)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with others online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social features to your site with WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social features to their site using WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins let you specify which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which users can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress Theme Features – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, some themes also provide options for improving SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Configuring Other Sections Of WordPress
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online, it’s important that your site complies with all legal requirements.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
We have written a detailed article about the importance of having a legally compliant website here:
Post Tags & Post Categories
WordPress categories & tags help search engines better organize and index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s SEO.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s post categories and tags should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
In the configuration phase, 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, it can also help external sites find more of your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although search engines like Google can index your site just from 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 results in increased traffic.
Configure Your 404 Page Not Found
When online users enter the wrong URL or click on an invalid hyperlink, they will normally be presented with a 404 Not Found error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 Error Page can redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up in your server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do to automatically bring more traffic is add new content consistently.
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 …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The skills and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some website professionals a long time 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 covered in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read more, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven online marketing methods.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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