Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is add web content consistently to drive traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration phase of this process. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to start to get web traffic automatically just by regularly publishing web content to your web site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive on a global scale and are looking for every advantage they can to get better results online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage over the competition. For businesses, an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start from the moment their website is launched.
The Configuration Stage Is What Makes The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here’s a simple way to describe the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does it take extra labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
Allow me to illustrate this point with a story.
Knowing Where To Tap
All is going well in the gizmo plant when suddenly, things cease working.
As no one can figure out what is wrong, the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
The expert arrives within in less than 20 minutes and, without uttering a word, immediately goes towards the control box. After staring silently at the board for what seems like 5 minutes or so, the expert then takes out a tiny little hammer and makes a single tap near the left edge of the control unit.
Immediately, everything starts working again.
The plant manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a service bill for $5,000.
Feeling furious, the factory manager dials the expert. Demanding to know why they have been charged such a large amount of money for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive traffic consistently to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one in the factory floor was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for spending years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to quickly assess and avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your site set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social sites and dozens of other online properties would be immediately 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 driving traffic to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems can seem ridiculously easy once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than installing a website and configuring a few internal settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which services you need to set up to get certain outcomes
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure in order to make sure things will function as planned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. This is because it’s not just about installing a piece of software, clicking a couple of buttons, or configuring some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your web server, your web site, and various external sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we create a simplified diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your hosting account specifically for handling 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 web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic you can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect 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 can include things like configuring server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After your web server settings have been checked and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites.
External Accounts
The idea behind choosing external sites is that all content should be posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will automatically be syndicated to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external platforms have been added to your traffic system, content linking back to your site will be automatically syndicated to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your website will then be given additional exposure to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some external sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your settings 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:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with useful data, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site data, this information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your account and site details, traffic tracking information can be added to WordPress via any of several Google Analytics plugins used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account is set up, this information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress provides users with a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your traffic system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social media accounts set up before you can integrate these with 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 bring new traffic to your site.
Set up accounts and profiles with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick those that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will cover some of these tools in more detail during the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to lots of social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your own RebelMouse account.
There are many different sites and platforms you can incorporate into your own web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
Configuring Your WordPress Site
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 Settings – WordPress
By default, your WordPress admin area includes a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As described 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 intentionally configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services field
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section includes only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
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
***
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 readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site to view 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 here is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Generally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly notify all the update services you have listed when a new post is 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 Settings
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)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow your site to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the ways your post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using permalinks here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve 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 website for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is completely immune from cyber-attacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your website’s SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your site’s SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing 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. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website using free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site using WordPress plugins.
Many social share plugins let you select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring layout and design aspects of your site, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a free theme) can be configured for improved traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Configuring Additional Features Of WordPress
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic, 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 start finding and visiting your website.
If you make money online, it’s important that your website is found to comply with all government legal requirements.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
We have written a detailed article about the importance of having a compliant website here:
WordPress Tags And Post Categories
Tags & categories help search engines classify and index your website, which helps you get more traffic.
(Categories help search engines classify and index your website, which improves traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your website’s categories and tags earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A visitor site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools discover your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. HTML site maps are web pages that provide users with a an understandable representation of how your content is organized, whereas XML sitemaps contain code that only search engines can interpret. Although Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins 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 – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When online visitors type in the wrong URL or click on a link pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they will typically be greeted with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do is post new content consistently to automatically begin bringing new traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some website professionals a long time to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read more, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business with a WordPress-driven website and proven marketing strategies that are easy to implement.
Get Notified When New WordPress Tutorials Get Published – Subscribe To Our Site!
***
"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya
***