Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this series, we described 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 is publish fresh content on a regular basis to bring web traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed 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 website, and what to do if your site was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration stage of the traffic automation process. We explain how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that web traffic will automatically start flowing as you begin adding content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive on a global scale and are exploring every advantage they believe will increase their competitiveness online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand is a tremendous competitive advantage. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website allows their business to get off to a flying start as soon as their site is launched.
The Configuration Process Is What Makes All The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to understand the main difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a joke.
Knowing Where To Tap
All is going just fine in the gizmo-making workshop when suddenly, production stops.
No one can figure out what’s gone wrong and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert.
The expert arrives within 20 minutes and goes immediately to the main control box. After staring silently at the schematics for 5 minutes, the expert then takes out a tiny hammer and makes a single tap about 1 cm from the left edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything starts working once again.
The floor manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the factory manager receives a bill for $5,000.
Furious, the manager picks up the phone and dials the expert. Why were they charged such a ludicrous fee for less than 5 minutes work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors to their sites.
How much money did the factory stand to lose when production stopped working and no one on the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to be compensated fairly for having spent years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to immediately avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WP website configured so all you had to do is publish new content and search engines, social followers from sites like Facebook and Twitter and dozens of other online 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?)
Although many experts often make difficult things look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which third-party accounts you need to set up and activate to get desired results
- Which options you need to configure to make sure processes will work as expected, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite complicated. It’s not just about installing and configuring a solution, clicking a button … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your site, and various third-party sites and services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If all the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these areas.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for website installation purposes. What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your business may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like configuring spam protection and securing server files, 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 emails, page error redirections, etc?)
After your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step is to set up and configure various external sites or online services.
Configuring External Web Properties
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all content will get posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get automatically distributed to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external platforms to your configuration, content pointing back to your website will be automatically published on search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and site will be exposed to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some of the third-party sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site to help 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 Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console)
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 data, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account is set up, use this information to automate web traffic settings 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, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up your Google Analytics account, visitor tracking information can be integrated with WordPress using a plugin used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account with Bing Webmaster Tools, the details can be used to automate web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers website owners a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, 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 traffic generation system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your 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 and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site.
Set up accounts and profiles with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can set up accounts with and post your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(You can post your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online web platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add a feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your website.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications you can incorporate into your web traffic blueprint. 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 web server and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
The WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – 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 or your webmaster have purposely configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(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, your choice of displaying the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to get 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 in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly notify your list of update services whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Permalinks enable your site to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks Screen)
The examples below show some of the ways your permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
To learn more about setting up WP permalinks, go here: Improve Your WordPress SEO With SEO-Friendly URLs
WP Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are 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 site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is immune from a cyberattack.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to hackers and botnets.
Go here to learn more:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages more indexable …
(SEO plugins help increase traffic by improving your site’s SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your website’s search engine optimization. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social features to your website easily using WordPress plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Many social share plugins let you specify which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to protect content which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress Traffic Theme Features – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site 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 hurt your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online, it’s important that your website remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
Post Categories & Post Tags
Post categories and tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your web pages.
(Categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s tags and categories should be set up during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools find your online content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although Google will index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Another Source Of Traffic!
When visitors enter the wrong web address into their web browser or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your website that no longer exists, they will typically be presented with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 Not Found error page) …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up in your web server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do is add great content on a regular basis to generate more traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and knowledge involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some website developers a long time to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Section 3
To keep reading, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive tutorial series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic sustainably with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven web marketing methods.
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