Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is post new content consistently to start driving traffic!)
In Part Two, we focused on the setup phase of this process. 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 site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that new visitors will automatically start flowing when you begin adding web content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With competition becoming increasingly more difficult businesses are researching every opportunity they can to get better results online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a huge advantage over the competition. With an expertly configured WordPress site, you have a significant competitive advantage from the word “go”.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
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 take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s a simple way to explain 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 professional web presence and an 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, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this point here’s an anecdote.
Knowing Where To Tap
Everything was going well in the gizmo-making factory when suddenly, the machines stopped.
As no one could figure out what was wrong, the floor manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and, without uttering a word, walked immediately towards the control box. After staring at the box for less than 3 minutes, the expert then took out a little hammer and made a very gentle tap near the left side of the box.
Immediately, everything started working as before.
The manager was delighted as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received a bill for $5,000.
The manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged such a ridiculously high fee for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrived in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic consistently to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to get paid fairly for having invested years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to quickly assess and repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a site set up so all you ever had to do is publish new content and search engines, social sites and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
While experts often make complex situations and problems look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install to add certain functionalities to your site.
- Which services need to be set up to get specific results
- Which options you need to configure in order to make sure things will work as expected, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. This is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a piece of software, tweaking some settings in your admin area or clicking a button … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your server, your WP site, and various third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If all the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a better look at these steps.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for site installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your hosting account specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your business will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like implementing server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After your server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step is to set up and configure a number of external sites and/or online solutions.
Configuring External Web Properties
The basic idea of setting up external sites is that all of your content should be published from a central location (your site) and from there, syndicate automatically to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external platforms to your traffic network, content linked back to your website is automatically published on search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and site will be given exposure to a new audience and new sources of traffic.
Some third-party sites and online services will need to be set up before configuring your 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 settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of useful information, tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site details with Google Webmaster Tools, this information can be used with traffic-related 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 efforts, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, traffic monitoring information can be added to WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and automatically sent to various other useful applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account and site details are set up, this information can be used to automate traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which various 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 automated traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need your social accounts set up before you can integrate these with 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 and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site.
Set up accounts and profile pages with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add a 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 own RebelMouse page.
There are many different solutions you can incorporate into your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Global Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include 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 results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains an important and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Section)
As stated below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have intentionally configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you 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 …
(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 readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to read 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 traffic is concerned, however, the main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically ping various update services 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 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 Section)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow your site to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
For a detailed tutorial about setting up permalinks, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that affect traffic generation
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what kind 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 websites.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
To learn more, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by improving your website’s SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, crawl and index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website with free or inexpensive plugins)
You can easily add social sharing features to your site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social share plugins allow you to specify which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which users can unlock by liking your page.
Theme Settings
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 layout and design aspects of your site, many themes also include built-in options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do business online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your website remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, go here:
Categories & Post Tags
Categories & tags help search engines index your website, which helps to increase traffic.
(Categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s SEO.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and categories should be discussed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
When looking at ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories that have been set up.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A site map that displays 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 website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. HTML site maps are web pages that provide users with a logical map of how your content is structured, whereas XML sitemaps are mostly just a bunch of code that only search engines can understand. Although search engines like Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin 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 – Another Source Of Web Traffic!
When visitors searching online for your website type in the wrong URL into their web browser or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your website that no longer exists, they will typically be greeted with a 404 error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your server, there are several WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do then is add great content regularly to automatically bring more traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many website professionals 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 explained in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Part 3
To keep reading, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping business owners learn how to grow their business and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven online marketing methods.
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