Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic generating machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to bring web traffic is post great content on a consistent basis!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration phase of this process. We will show you why an expertly configured site is different, and how much work needs to be done to make sure that when everything is fully configured, web traffic will automatically start flowing as you start publishing web content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With competition making business survival increasingly more difficult businesses are researching any advantage they believe will help them increase their competitiveness online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage. An expertly configured website gives you a flying start and a significant advantage online.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a significant 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 one way to explain the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site 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 system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
To illustrate this point here’s a story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All was going just fine in the gizmo-making plant when everything ground to a sudden stop.
No one could figure out what happened and so the floor manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and headed immediately towards the main control box. After staring silently at the box for what seemed like 5 minutes, the expert then took out a teeny-weeny little hammer from his tool box and made a very gentle tap about two cm from the left-hand side of the unit.
Immediately, everything sprang back to life.
The manager was filled with joy as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager received a bill for $5,000.
The manager called the expert, demanding to know why they were being charged such a ludicrous fee for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work and promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived and was placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive new traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when production stopped working and no one on the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for having invested years building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to repair a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a site fully set up and configured so all you have to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other 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 site?)
Although many experts often make difficult solutions look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts you need to set up to get desired results
- Which options need to be configured to make sure processes will run as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. This is because it’s not just about installing one or two plugins, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of many different parts including your web hosting server, your website, and various external sites and online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these steps in more detail.
Your Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking settings in your web server specifically for handling web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your website may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like configuring server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
Once your server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step is to set up and configure various external sites and services.
Integration With External Sites
The basic idea of setting up external sites is that all of your content will get posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will radiate outwards automatically to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external services to your traffic system, content linking back to your website gets automatically added to these platforms. Your content and website will be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings to help 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 site)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with essential data, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account with Google Webmaster Tools, this information can be used to automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
After setting up your up your Google Analytics account and site data has been entered, traffic monitoring data can be integrated with WordPress using a simple Google Analytics plugin used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account and entering site data with Bing Webmaster Tools, this information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers both the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great 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 web traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need your social media accounts set up in order to 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 visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and pages set up with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are many social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(You can post your content to loads of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add an RSS feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your social feed.
There are many different platforms you can add to your web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site For Traffic
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.
WordPress Settings
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As stated in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services box
By default, this section contains only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
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
***
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 in this section can influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website to view 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 here is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to notify all the update services you have listed in the Update Services field whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion
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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Permalinks enable your site to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your site’s SEO-friendly URLs …
(Configuring permalinks)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this tutorial: How To Set Up WordPress Permalinks
WordPress Plugin Settings – Configuration
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including traffic generation.
Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you simply cannot ignore the importance of securing your site.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to bots and hackers.
Go here for more info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages easy for search engines like Google and Bing to index …
(WordPress Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily using WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social features to your website with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social share plugins let you choose 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 followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress Traffic Generation Theme Features
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 the design and layout of your site, many themes also provide options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your site is as easy as clicking a few buttons and enabling the function …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Configuring Additional WordPress Features
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic 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 find and begin to visit your website.
If you make money online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your site remains compliant with government laws and regulations.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?)
We have created a detailed article on why it’s important to have a legally compliant website here:
WordPress Post Categories And Tags
Post tags & categories help search engines index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your web pages.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your site’s tags and categories during the Website Planning Stages.
When considering ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags you have set up.
Site Map
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover your online content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. HTML site maps are web pages that link to all other content on your site and provide visitors with a an understandable map of how your content is organized, whereas XML sitemaps are mostly just a bunch of code that only search bots can understand. Although 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 can result in increased traffic.
404 Page – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When visitors searching for your website enter the wrong URL into their web browser or click on a dead link, they will typically be presented with a 404 page …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your web server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do to automatically begin bringing new web traffic is add content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of skills and knowledge involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some website professionals months to acquire.
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 addressed in the next section of the WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of an article series aimed at helping business owners learn how to grow their business and drive traffic automatically with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy and quick to implement.
Get Notified When New WordPress Tutorials Are Published – Subscribe Using The Form Below!
***
"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
***