Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new visitors automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this article series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is post web content on a regular basis to automatically begin bringing more traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to get started 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 with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we look at the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to ensure that traffic will automatically start flowing just by posting fresh content on your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as their greatest challenge online. With business becoming so much more competitive worldwide, it’s worth looking into any opportunity you can to get better results online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous competitive advantage. For business owners, an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start from the moment their site is launched.
The Configuration Process Is The Difference
There is a 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 its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to understand the difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take additional labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
Let me illustrate this point with an amusing story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Everything is going well in the widget manufacturing plant when all of a sudden, production stops.
No one can figure out what went wrong and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
Soon afterward, the expert arrives and, without uttering a word, walks immediately to the control box. After staring silently at the box for less than 2 minutes or so, the expert then takes out a teensy-weensy hammer and makes a single tap near the top-left corner of the control unit.
Immediately, everything starts working once again.
The floor manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Furious, the factory manager picks up the phone and dials the expert. Demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a large amount of money for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives and is placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving web traffic to their sites.
How much money did the widget factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the business 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 acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a blog set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
While the solution to many problems is often quite simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which services you need to set up to get specific outcomes
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to make sure things function as envisioned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite complicated. It’s not as easy as installing a plugin, tweaking some options and settings in your admin area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many parts including your web server, your website, and a number of external sites and online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we create a simple flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps in more detail.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for site installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your business may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for both good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like implementing spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
Once your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites and services.
Third-Party Accounts Configuration
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all of your content will be posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will syndicate automatically to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external sites have been added to your system, content linking back to your site will be automatically syndicated to these platforms. Your content and business will receive exposure online, helping your business tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the external web properties and online services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress settings to speed up the process 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:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with essential data, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site details with Google, you can use this information to automate traffic settings and notifications 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 performance, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details have been set up, you can add your account code to WordPress via plugins and feed data instantly to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account, use this information to automate traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers users a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to build a professional business presence online.
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 these features into your automated web traffic generation system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your social media accounts before you can 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 get new visitors to your site.
You should have profiles set up with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of 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 system and/or content sharing tools (we will cover some of these tools in more detail further below and in the Automation phase).
(There are loads of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. 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 your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own RebelMouse page.
There are various solutions you can add to your own web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
WordPress Site Configuration
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 key areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains an important and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – 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 or your webmaster have purposely chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services text area
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is available …
(WordPress Update Services)
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
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 have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers 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 read the rest of the content from excerpts, 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 checkbox is enabled or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to instantly notify all the update services you have listed in the Update Services area whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines 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 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)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your SEO-friendly URLs …
(Configuring post permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress Traffic Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at 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 handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is completely immune from a cyber-attack.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and bots.
To learn more, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your website’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines to find and index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with friends and members of their social networks can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website with WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social share plugins let you select which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to protect content which users can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress Theme Settings
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 website, some themes also include built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing features to your pages is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure For Better Traffic Results
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do business online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, see this article:
Tags & Post Categories
Categories & post tags help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and post categories should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags that have been set up.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
A visitor site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools find your web content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although search engines like Google will index your site just from 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.
Your 404 Page Not Found
When online visitors type in the wrong URL into their web browser or click on hyperlinks pointing to pages on your site that no longer exist, they will normally be greeted with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover web 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 error page can be set up in your server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your website or blog has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do to automatically start generating new web traffic is publish new content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform this process can take some website professionals a long time to learn.
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 explained in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To continue reading about this topic, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive tutorial series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively and drive traffic automatically with a WordPress-driven website and proven online marketing methods.
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