Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive traffic automatically to your website using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to begin attracting traffic is add great content regularly!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the blueprint. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will look at the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. You will learn why an expertly configured WordPress site is different. You will also discover just what kind of work is required to ensure that when everything is fully set up and configured, you can drive traffic automatically just by posting new content on your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as their greatest challenge online. With business getting so much more competitive, it’s worth looking into every opportunity you can to increase your own competitiveness online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge competitive advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website means having a significant advantage from the very start.
The Configuration Process Is What Makes The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here’s a simple way to understand the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence plus an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does it take additional work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this point here is a little story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All is going well in the gizmo-making factory when all of a sudden, everything comes to a stop.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
The expert arrives shortly afterwards and, without saying a word, walks straight towards the main control box. After staring at the electronic components for no more than 5 minutes or so, the expert then produces a tiny little hammer and makes a single tap about one inch from the left-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 for payment of $5,000.
Furious, the manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged so much for less than five minutes work, he then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving visitors to their sites.
How much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the machines stopped working and no one on the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to ask to be compensated fairly for having spent years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to immediately avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WordPress site fully configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and search engines, social sites and dozens of other web 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 website?)
Although many 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 involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which services need to be set up to get certain outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure in order to ensure that processes will work as planned, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically challenging, but it’s quite involved and time-consuming. It’s not as easy as installing and configuring one or two plugins, clicking a button, or tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and so much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of different components such as your web hosting server, your website, and various external sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we were to create a simplified flowchart showing all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these areas.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking 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 web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your website may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like implementing server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, 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 redirections, etc?)
After your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites and services.
Configuring External Sites
The idea behind choosing external sites is that all content should be published to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, be distributed automatically to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external sites have been added to your network, content with links pointing back to your website will be automatically fed to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social media sites, even to users of the platform itself. Your website will be given exposure to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress settings to help 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 Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmasters lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with important data, SEO tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account, use the information to integrate and automate web traffic-related 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 results, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data are set up, you can add visitor tracking code to WordPress using a plugin and send data instantly to many other useful applications and web properties.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account and site details have been set up, you can use this information with traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your traffic generation system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social 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 attract new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and profiles set up with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can You can syndicate your content to lots of social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we cover some of these tools in greater detail in the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add a feed from your WordPress site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
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 website.
There are various platforms you can incorporate into your traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure WordPress.
Configuring WordPress
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
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains an important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have purposely chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services box
By default, only one service is listed …
(WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post to this section …
(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 influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your site 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.
The main setting here as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly ping the update services list when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the ways your permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using permalinks here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using Permalinks
WordPress Traffic Generation Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s look at 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 site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your sites is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
More information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web content easily indexable …
(SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your website’s ability to rank better in search engines)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines to find and index, it also lets you specify how to present your content to Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with others online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you provide content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are many free or inexpensive social sharing plugins to choose from.
Most social share plugins allow you to select which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
WP Theme Features
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 include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure settings for improved traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Other Areas To Consider
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:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle good and unwanted traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you are making money online, you need to make sure that your site complies with all legal requirements.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
Tags And Categories
WordPress post categories & tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your website.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s post categories and tags should be set up during the Website Planning Phase.
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 WordPress 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 site’s content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page – An Additional Source Of Web Traffic!
When visitors searching for your website type in the wrong URL into their browser or click on a dead link, they are presented with an error – page not found message …
(A 404 Not Found error page)
A 404 page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover 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 allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website or blog has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do is post great content on a consistent basis to attract web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The expertise required to perform this phase of the traffic automation process typically takes some web professionals months to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is covered in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of an article series aimed at helping website owners learn how to grow their business online and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven web marketing methods.
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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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