Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a site into an automated traffic generating machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do is publish web content on a consistent basis to attract new web traffic!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase of this process. We helped you understand 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 site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we look at the configuration stage of the traffic system. The focus of this section is to help you understand what makes an expertly configured site different from a professionally configured site, and how much work needs to be done to ensure that when all is set up and fully configured, you can automatically start to get visitors simply by adding content regularly to your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business getting so much more competitive, it’s worth learning about any and every advantage available to increase your own competitiveness online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage over other competitors. With an expertly configured website, your business has a significant competitive advantage from the word “go”.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
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 has to offer.
Here’s one way to describe the main difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!)
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.
To illustrate this point here is an amusing story.
A Semi-True Story …
All was going fine in the gizmo-making assembly line when everything came to a sudden stop.
No one could figure out what went wrong and so the floor manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and, without uttering a word, immediately walked towards the control box. After staring silently at the electronic components for no more than 5 minutes or so, the expert then produced a tiny hammer from his tool belt and made a single tap about 1 cm from the bottom-right edge of the box.
Immediately, the machines sprang to life once more.
The floor manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager received a bill for $5,000.
The manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for less than 5 minutes work and promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors consistently to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one in the business was able to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for years spent acquiring the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately assess and fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a website set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and search engines, social networking 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 attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although experts often make complex solutions look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to work things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring some basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which services you need to set up and activate to achieve desired results
- Which options need to be configured to make sure things will function as expected, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically challenging, but it’s quite involved. This is because it’s not as simple as installing a solution, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area or clicking a button … it’s all of this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of a number of different parts including your server, your website, and a number of external sites and online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During 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 you may attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like implementing server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
After your server settings have been checked and configured, the next step is to configure various external sites and services.
Integration With External Sites
The idea behind adding external sites is that all of your content gets published from a central location (your site) and from there, it gets automatically distributed to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external services to your traffic system, content pointing back to your site gets automatically published on these platforms. Your content and website will be given added exposure to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some third-party sites and solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site’s settings to speed up the process and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of essential data, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your account with Google Webmaster Tools, you can use your details to automate web 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 site’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add traffic tracking code to all of your web pages in WordPress via any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data automatically to other useful applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account and site details are set up, your information can be used with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers both a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your traffic generation system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media
(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 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 and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site.
You should set up accounts and profiles with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social sites you can post your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we discuss some of these tools in more detail in the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to loads of social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your own RebelMouse account.
There are various platforms you can incorporate into your web traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring this area 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 your site.
WordPress Site 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.
Global Settings – WordPress
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As described in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Writing Settings – WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section and WordPress will do the rest …
(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 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 influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site 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.
As far as your traffic system is concerned, however, the most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to automatically ping various update services whenever new posts are 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 unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion
Although discussion settings 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 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings Section)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your search-friendly URLS …
(Configuring post permalinks)
For a detailed tutorial about setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at 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 matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your web sites.
(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.
Go here for more details:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages more search engine friendly …
(Yoast SEO – WP Plugins For SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with others can help boost traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing to your website easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins to choose from.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to specify which social 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 shares), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, many themes also include built-in options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes can be configured for improved traffic results)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing features to your content is as easy as clicking a few buttons and enabling the function …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Additional WordPress Areas
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic blueprint configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do business online (or plan to), it’s important that your site complies with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With The Law?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website, go here:
WordPress Post Categories & Tags
Post categories and tags help search engines better organize and index your website, which improves traffic.
(Post categories help search engines index your website, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your site’s post tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
When considering ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and categories you have set up.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A 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 discover more of your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. HTML site maps provide readers with a an understandable representation of how your content is structured, whereas XML sitemaps contain code that only search bots can read. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Forget This!
When visitors searching for your website enter the wrong web address or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they are presented with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 Not Found error page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up on your web server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then to automatically start generating traffic is publish web content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform this process typically takes many website developers months to acquire.
Once you have expertly 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 read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping business owners learn how to grow their business online using a WordPress-powered website and proven marketing strategies that are easy to implement.
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