Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your site into an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to start attracting traffic is add great content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section, we will discuss the configuration phase of the traffic blueprint. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site to automatically begin to get web traffic when you publish web content to your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by website owners as their greatest challenge online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive on a global scale and are researching any opportunity they can to increase their competitiveness online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage over the competition. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start from the moment their site is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a 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 its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to understand the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
To illustrate this here is an anecdote.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All was humming along in the widget factory when all of a sudden, things stopped working.
No one could figure out what happened and so the manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrived and walked immediately towards the main control box. After staring at the schematics for 2 minutes, the expert then took out a tiny hammer and made a gentle tap about 1 inch from the right edge of the box.
Immediately, the machinery sprang back to life.
The floor manager was filled with joy as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a ludicrous fee for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive new traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the equipment stopped functioning and no one on the factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to ask to be compensated fairly for spending years developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a web site set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
While many experts often make difficult things look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than just installing a website and configuring some basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts need to be set up and activated to get certain outcomes
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to ensure that things work as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not technically challenging, but it’s quite involved and time-consuming. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a solution, configuring some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your site, and a number of third-party sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we create a simple flowchart of the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your web hosting account 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 web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your business may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like integrating spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites.
Third-Party Accounts Integration
The basic concept of adding external sites is that all of your content should be published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, radiate outwards to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external platforms have been added to your system, content with links pointing back to your website gets automatically fed to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content will benefit from exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the external sites and solutions will need to be set up before configuring your site 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 before configuring your WordPress site’s settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmasters lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with important data, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
Once your Google Search Console account has been set up, you can use this information with traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
After setting up your account, you can add your account information to all of your pages in WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data automatically to other applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account with Bing Webmaster Tools, use this information to automate traffic settings in WordPress 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 platform if you are planning to build a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, 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 Part 4 of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media pages and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media accounts before you can configure these as part of your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site.
Set up accounts and profiles with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can You can post your content to loads of social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select those that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(You can syndicate your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your website.
There are various sites and platforms you can add to your web traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress 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 of the important areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated below the Update Services section title,
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 services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers 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 read 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 main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to instantly notify all the update services you have specified in the Update Services section 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 unticked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
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 sites 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 Screen)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow your site to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the ways post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With SEO-Friendly URLs
Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help your site generate more traffic
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 website or blog is immune from being hacked.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bots and hackers.
To learn more, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web content more indexable …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress Plugin)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with members of their social networks can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social features to your site easily using WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins let you specify which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which users can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring Settings – Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, some themes also provide built-in options for improving SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes can be configured for improved traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure For Improved Traffic Flow
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your website remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, see this article:
Post Categories & Post Tags
WordPress tags & post categories help search engines classify and index your pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(Categories help search engines index your web pages, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post categories and tags should be set up during the Website Planning Process.
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 and results.
Add A Site Map
A site map that displays all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites discover your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, while an XML sitemap is code that only search engine bots can interpret. Although Google can index your site just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Configure Your WordPress 404 Error Page
When visitors searching for your website type in the wrong web address into their web browser or click on a dead link, they are greeted with a 404 page …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 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 area.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to start generating web traffic is post fresh content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The skills and knowledge required to perform this process can take some website professionals months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is explained in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read more, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping business owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively with a WordPress-powered website and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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