Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is publish great content consistently to attract traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. We explained 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 site was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will discuss the configuration phase of the traffic system. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured in order to get visitors automatically when you add web content on your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive worldwide and are exploring any and every opportunity they can to increase their competitiveness online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start from the moment their site is launched.
The Difference Is In The Configuration Process
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s one way to describe the differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Allow me to illustrate this with a little story.
Knowing Where To Tap
All was moving along in the widget workshop when things came to a sudden stop.
As no one could figure out what was wrong, the plant manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately walked towards the main control box. After staring silently at the box for less than 5 minutes, the expert then produced a teeny-weeny little hammer and made a single tap near the right edge of the control unit.
Immediately, everything returned to normal.
The plant manager was delighted as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager received a request of payment for services for the sum of $5,000.
The factory manager rang back the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged so much for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work and promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the business was able to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to demand fair compensation for spending years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to immediately fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress blog fully set up so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social media and dozens of other web properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your site?)
Although many experts often make complicated situations and problems look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to work things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring a few internal settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up and activate to get certain outcomes
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to make sure everything works as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite involved and complicated. It’s not as easy as installing a solution, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area or clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of a number of different components including your web hosting server, your site, and various external sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simplified flowchart of the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these steps in more detail.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes. What we are talking about, is configuring settings in your web server that affect how you will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web hosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic you may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like integrating server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
After your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites and services.
Third-Party Services
The basic idea of setting up external sites is that all of your content will be posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it will syndicate automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external services have been added to your configuration, content linked back to your site will get automatically added to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and site benefits from exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some third-party sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to save time and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, here are just some of the accounts you will need to have set up before configuring your site’s settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with important information, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site data with Google, you can use this information to automate traffic-related settings in WordPress 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 behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your account and site details, you can add your account code to WordPress using plugins and send data automatically to many other applications and web properties.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account with Bing, use this information to integrate and automate traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by a number of 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 the next installment of this series.
Social Media Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need to set up your social media accounts 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 and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose those that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will look at some of these tools in greater detail further below and in the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to many social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse account.
There are many different platforms you can add to your own traffic system. Please 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 server settings and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Global WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress administration area includes a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Screen)
As described 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 discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services text box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section contains only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can 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 Settings
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, your choice to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site to read the rest of the content from excerpts, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to automatically ping all the update services you have specified in the Update Services section when a new post gets 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 this section is mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to blogs 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings Section)
The examples below show some of the ways your SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress – Traffic Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of securing your site.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to bots and hackers.
Go here for more information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages more indexable …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your website’s search engine optimization. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to index, it also lets you specify how to display your content to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social features to your site easily with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social features to your site using WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins let you choose which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which users can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, many themes also provide built-in options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes allow you to configure options and settings for better traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your site is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons and enabling the feature …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic – Other Important Areas To Configure
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of business online, you need to ensure that your website is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Legally Compliant?)
For a detailed article on how to quickly add legal pages to your website or blog, go here:
Post Tags And Post Categories
WordPress post categories and tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your web pages.
(WordPress post categories help search engines index your pages, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s post categories and tags during the Website Planning Phase.
When configuring your web site to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags that have been set up.
Site Map
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications discover your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although Google will index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin 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.
Your WordPress 404 Page
When visitors searching online for your site enter the wrong URL into their browser or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they will normally be presented with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to begin bringing more traffic is post great content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different components and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform this process typically takes some web developers a long time to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. 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 on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help you learn how to grow your business online with a WordPress-driven website and proven web marketing strategies.
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