Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new visitors automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this article series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to bring web traffic is post new content regularly!)
In Part Two, we discussed critical setup decisions. 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 website, and what to do if your existing website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we discuss the configuration phase of the traffic system. We will show you how a WordPress site should be configured in order to automatically begin bringing traffic just by consistently adding content on your web site.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With competition becoming increasingly more difficult businesses are looking for any opportunity they can to improve their performance and results online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage over other competitors. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website means having a significant advantage from the very beginning.
The Configuration Process Is What Makes All The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to understand the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does it take more work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything is running smoothly in the gizmo-making assembly line when things grind to a sudden stop.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
The expert arrives shortly after being summoned and, without uttering a word, immediately goes towards the main control box. After staring silently at the wires and circuitry for what seems like 5 minutes or so, the expert then produces a little hammer from his utility belt and makes a gentle tap about 1 inch from the right corner of the unit.
Immediately, every machine returns to normal.
The plant manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Feeling furious, the manager dials the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them so much for less than 5 minutes work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when production stopped working and no one in the factory floor was able to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to get paid fairly for years spent building up the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress web site fully set up so all you have to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other online properties would be automatically 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 site?)
Although many experts often make complicated things look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than simply installing a website and configuring basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install to add certain functionalities to your site.
- Which services need to be set up and activated to achieve desired results
- Which settings you need to configure to ensure that everything will work as planned, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. This is because it’s not just about installing and configuring one or two plugins, tweaking some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of a number of different parts such as your web hosting server, your web site, and a number of third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings in your server that affect how your website will handle 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 welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your website can attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for good and bad 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, setting up error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
Once your server settings have been checked and configured, the next step is to configure various external sites and online services.
External Services
The idea behind choosing external sites is that all of your content will get posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will syndicate automatically to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external platforms into your setup, content linking back to your site gets automatically published on your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content will then receive increased exposure online, helping you tap into a whole new audience and traffic source.
Some of the sites will need to have accounts 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 Search Console
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with important data, SEO tools and reports about your website.
Once your account and site details have been set up, your details can be used to integrate and automate traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
After setting up your account and site details, you can add traffic monitoring code to WordPress using a plugin and send data instantly to other useful applications and web properties.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account and site details with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, you can use the details to automate traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers users a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to build a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your automated traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social media 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 get new traffic to your site.
You should have accounts and pages set up with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image source 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 levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add an RSS feed from your site …
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 many different platforms you can incorporate into your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress Site Configuration
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 of the important points.
WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress administration area includes a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Section)
As described 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 purposely configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services section
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section includes only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post 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
This section affects how your content gets seen by readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to read 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 here is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Generally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to ping various update services when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(Global Settings – 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 blogs linked to from your posts, 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)
Permalinks
Permalinks enable WordPress to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings Screen)
The examples below show some of the ways your site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress Traffic Generation Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help your site generate more traffic
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling 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 websites is something you cannot ignore.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
To learn more, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(WordPress Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your website’s search engine optimization. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, classify and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with their social networks can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing features to your site easily with WordPress plugins)
You can add social features to your website easily with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social share plugins allow you to 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 likes), 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 can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, many themes also give you built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add tracking snippets, 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 clicking a couple of buttons and enabling the feature …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Configuring Other WordPress Settings For More Traffic Results
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwanted traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do business online, it’s important that your website is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?)
We have created a detailed article on the importance of having a legally compliant website here:
Post Categories & Post Tags
Post categories & tags help search engines index your web pages, which improves traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s post tags and post categories should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phases.
When configuring your website to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits.
Visitor Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools find your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that 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, while an XML sitemap is mostly filled with code that only search engine bots can interpret. Although Google can index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – Don’t Forget This!
When visitors searching online for your site type in the wrong web address or click on a dead hyperlink, they are presented with an error page (known as a 404 page) …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up on your server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then is publish content on a regular basis to automatically begin attracting web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many website developers a long time to learn.
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 covered in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of an article series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively with a WordPress website or blog and proven online marketing methods.
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