Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to automatically start driving web traffic is post great content regularly!)
In Part 2, 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 existing site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we discuss the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site so you can automatically begin driving new visitors simply by publishing fresh content consistently on your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive on a global scale and are looking for any and every advantage they believe will improve their performance online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage over the competition. For businesses, an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the very beginning.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to understand the main difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only is additional work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
Allow me to illustrate this point with a story.
Knowing Where To Tap
All is running smoothly in the gizmo manufacturing plant when all of a sudden, things just stop.
No one can figure out what is wrong and so the manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert immediately goes to the control box. After staring at the control unit for about 2 minutes or so, the expert then takes out a tiny hammer and makes a single tap about one and half cm from the right-hand side of the box.
Immediately, everything comes back to life.
The plant manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a request of payment for services rendered for $5,000.
Unable to hide his anger, the manager picks up the phone and dials the expert. Demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a large amount of money for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the equipment stopped functioning and no one on the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for spending years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to quickly assess and avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a site set up and configured so all you have to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
While experts often make complex situations and problems look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get certain functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party services you need to set up and activate to achieve desired results
- Which settings need to be configured to make sure things will work as expected, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite involved. It’s not just about installing and configuring a solution, configuring some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of various different components such as your server, your website or blog, and various third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the activities involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for site installation purposes. What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings in your server that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your business may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like configuring server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After your web server settings have been checked and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites and services.
Integration With External Accounts
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all of your content should be published from a central location (your site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After adding these external platforms to your network, content pointing back to your website will get automatically published on these platforms. Your content and site benefits from added exposure online, helping your business tap into a whole new audience and traffic source.
Some of the third-party sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings to 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 WordPress site:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of useful information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account and site details are set up, use this information to integrate and automate web traffic 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, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details have been set up, visitor tracking code can be added to all of your web pages in WordPress via a plugin and instantly sent to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account is set up, you can use your details to automate traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. 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 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 this into your web traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need to set up your social media accounts 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 sites and social bookmarking accounts and get new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts and profiles with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools (we cover some of these tools in more detail further below and during the Automation phase).
(There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add a feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your page.
There are various sites and platforms that can be added to your web traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains an important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you 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 section
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section contains only one entry …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(You can 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 visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to get the rest of the content from a partial feed, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting here as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to notify all the update services you have listed when new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
Although the settings in this section are mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to sites 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your site’s permalink URLs …
(Configuring permalinks)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks here: How To Change WordPress Permalinks
Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more visitors to your site
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is completely immune from a cyberattack.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to botnets and hackers.
To learn more, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your site’s ability to rank better in search engines)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your website’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find, classify and index, it also lets you specify how to present your content to Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you provide content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website using free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site with free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social sharing plugins let you select which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring Settings – Themes
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 layout and design aspects of your website, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your site is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the WordPress traffic system configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwanted traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of business online, you need to make sure that your website remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, go here:
Post Tags & Categories
Post categories and tags help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which helps you get more traffic.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your web pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s post categories and tags should be reviewed and set up during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post categories and tags have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits.
HTML Site Map
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications discover more of your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although search engines like Google will index your site just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Don’t Forget Your 404 Page Not Found
When online users enter the wrong URL or click on a hyperlink pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they will normally be greeted with a 404 page …
(A 404 Not Found page)
A 404 Not Found error page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 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 several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then is publish fresh content on a consistent basis to begin attracting web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of skills and knowledge involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some website professionals months to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next article in our WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read more, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-driven website and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
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