Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using WordPress.
In Part One of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is add fresh content on a consistent basis to automatically start generating traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase of the blueprint. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic system. You will understand what makes an expertly configured site different. You will also learn how much work needs to be done to make sure that when everything is set up and fully configured, traffic will automatically start flowing just by consistently publishing content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by website owners as their greatest challenge online. With competition becoming progressively tougher businesses are researching any and every advantage they believe will help them get better results online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous competitive advantage. With an expertly configured website, you have an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
The Configuration Process Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here’s a simple way to explain the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this here is an amusing little story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Everything is going fine in the widget factory when things come to a sudden stop.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert immediately heads towards the main control box. After staring silently at the electronic components for no more than 2 minutes, the expert then takes out a teeny-weeny little hammer and makes a gentle tap near the left side of the unit.
Immediately, everything begins to work again.
The floor manager is greatly relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager receives a request of payment for services rendered totalling $5,000.
Angry and bordering on a sense of outrage, the factory manager picks up the phone and rings the expert. Why were they expected to pay such an exorbitant fee for less than 5 minutes work? He then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives and is placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when the machines stopped functioning and no one in the business had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for years spent building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to repair a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a blog fully set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be automatically 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 solutions look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than simply installing a website and configuring some basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed to get various functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up to achieve specific results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to make sure processes will run as expected, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing a piece of software, clicking a button, or configuring some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many parts including your web server, your WP site, and a number of external sites and online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If the activities involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps.
Configuring The Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings in your server that affect how you will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your website can attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
Once your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step is to configure various external sites and/or online services.
External Web Properties & Solutions – Configuration
The basic idea of setting up external sites is that all content should be posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, be automatically distributed to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external sites to your configuration, content linking back to your website will be automatically fed to search, social and aggregator sites. Your site receives exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site’s settings to 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 site’s settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Search Console)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with useful information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site data, use this information to integrate and automate 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 traffic performance, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up your Google Analytics account, your account code can be added to all of your pages in WordPress using a Google Analytics plugin and and fed to various other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account is set up, you can use your details with web 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 provides users with a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and get new traffic to your site)
You will need to set up your various social media and social bookmarking 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 drive new traffic to your site.
You should have accounts with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick the ones that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools (we discuss 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 Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online web platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute social content to social networks)
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 RebelMouse account.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications you can incorporate into your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, this section contains only one entry …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(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 your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users 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 website to get the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting here as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to instantly notify various update services whenever new posts are 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 Screen)
Discussion
Although this section is 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow your site to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the ways your permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Setting Up Your WordPress Permalinks
WordPress Traffic Plugins – Configuration
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality to your site, including traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress 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, you cannot afford to ignore the importance of website security.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web content easy for search engines like Google and Bing to index …
(WordPress SEO plugins help increase traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your website’s SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to find, classify and 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+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with others can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social features to your website easily using free or inexpensive plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to select which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring Settings – WordPress Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring layout and design elements of your website, some themes also include built-in options for improving SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the WordPress traffic system configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwanted traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do any type of business online, it’s important that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
We have written a detailed article on the importance of having a legally compliant website here:
WordPress Tags & Categories
Post categories and tags help search engines better organize and index your website, which improves traffic.
(Categories help to improve your site’s search optimization, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s post tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags you have set up.
HTML Site Map
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications discover your online 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. HTML site maps provide readers with a visual map of how your content is structured, while XML sitemaps are mostly just a bunch of code that only search bots can read. Although Google can index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Your WordPress 404 Error Page
When visitors enter the wrong web address into their web browser or click on an invalid link, they will normally be presented with a 404 page …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do then to drive web traffic is post fresh content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The skills and expertise required to perform the configuration process can take some website professionals a long time to acquire.
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 series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read more, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively and drive traffic automatically with a WordPress website or blog and proven web marketing methods.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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