Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is post fresh content regularly to automatically begin attracting more web traffic!)
In Part Two, we focused on critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic automation process. We will explain why an expertly configured WordPress site is different, and what kind of work needs to be done to make sure that when all is set up and fully configured, you can attract visitors automatically just by posting content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With business becoming so much more competitive worldwide, it’s worth exploring any opportunity you can to get better results online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage over other competitors. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start from the moment their website is launched.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here’s one way to describe the differences:
With a WordPress site 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 with an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Let me illustrate this point with an amusing little story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All was going well in the gizmo-making assembly line when production suddenly stopped.
As no one could figure out what happened, the plant manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrived and immediately went to the main control box. After staring silently at the wiring board for less than 2 minutes or so, the expert then produced a teensy-weensy little hammer and made a single tap near the right corner of the control unit.
Immediately, every machine inside the assembly plant sprang to life again.
The plant manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager received a request for payment of services rendered for $5,000.
The factory manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving new traffic to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when production stopped working and no one on the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to get paid fairly for having invested years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to quickly assess and repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WordPress web site set up and configured so all you had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other online properties would be instantly 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 site?)
While the solution to many challenges is often quite simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring site settings for clients. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services need to be set up to achieve specific results
- Which settings you need to configure in order to make sure everything works to plan, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite involved and complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing a plugin, clicking a couple of buttons, or tweaking some options and 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 components such as your web server, your web site, and a number of third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these steps in more detail.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings in your web-hosting account that affect how your site will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your business may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like configuring spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
Once your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites or online services.
Configuring External Services
The basic concept of choosing external sites is that all content will be posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will syndicate automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external platforms have been added to your network, content pointing back to your website gets automatically published on search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and business will receive exposure online, helping you tap into a whole new audience and source of traffic.
Some of the web properties and online services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site to save time and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with useful information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account with Google Webmaster Tools have been set up, you can use this information with 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 website’s results, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
After setting up your account and site details, you can add traffic tracking code to WordPress via plugins and feed data instantly to various other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account and entering site data, you can use the account information with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers both the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to build a professional business presence online.
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 with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need your social media and social bookmarking accounts set up in order to 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 visitors to your site.
You should have accounts with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are many social sites you can set up accounts with and post your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick those that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools (we will cover some of these tools in more detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to loads of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary-level 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 your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute social content to social networks)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse page.
There are many different platforms that can be added to your 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 server settings and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Traffic 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 key areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
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 intentionally configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of update services entered into the Update Services box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
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 Settings
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 traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays 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 blog to view 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 most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to automatically notify various update services when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, do not check this box …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
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
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
If you need help setting up WP permalinks, go here: Improve Your WordPress SEO Using Permalinks
WP Traffic Generation Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No web site is completely safe from being attacked.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to attacks from hackers and botnets.
Go here for more details:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web content easily indexable …
(WordPress SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your site’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with their social networks 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 using free or inexpensive plugins)
You can easily add social sharing features to your site with WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins allow you to choose which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring design and layout aspects of your website, some themes also give you built-in options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a free theme) can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing features to your content is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
Additional Configuration Steps For WordPress Traffic Automation
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwanted traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you make money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
WordPress Post Tags & Categories
Categories & tags help search engines classify and index your web pages, which improves traffic.
(WordPress post categories help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your website’s post categories and tags during the Website Planning Phase.
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 benefits.
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 online content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although search engines like Google can index your site just using 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 results in increased traffic.
Your 404 Page Not Found
When visitors enter the wrong URL or click on a hyperlink pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they are greeted with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 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 dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do is post great content on a regular basis to automatically bring more traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform this stage of the traffic automation process can take some web developers a long time to learn.
Once you have 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 the series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read more, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online with a WordPress website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
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