Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress 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 article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is add great content regularly to automatically begin attracting new traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic system. We will show you how a WordPress site should be configured to automatically start getting new traffic when you begin to publish new content to your web site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive worldwide and are exploring any and every advantage they believe will increase their competitiveness online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous competitive advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to understand the main difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take extra work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this here is a little story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Things were running smoothly in the gizmo workshop when everything suddenly stopped working.
As no one could figure out what happened, the manager decided to call in an expert.
The expert arrived shortly after being summoned and, without saying a word, immediately walked to the control box. After staring at the wires and circuitry for 3 minutes or less, the expert then produced a tiny hammer and made a gentle tap near the left-hand side of the box.
Immediately, everything came back to life.
The manager was grateful and relieved as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager received a request for payment of services rendered for the amount of $5,000.
The factory manager called the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for less than 5 minutes work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving new traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for years spent developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your site configured so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social networks and dozens of other traffic-generating online 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 difficult things look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than just installing a website and configuring basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install to add various functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts need to be set up to get desired outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured to make sure things work as planned, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite complicated. It’s not as simple as installing a solution, configuring some settings in your dashboard area or clicking a button … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your web site, and a number of third-party sites and/or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a better look at what’s involved.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings in your server that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web-hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your business can attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect 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 security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess and error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to configure various third-party sites and services.
3rd-Party Web Properties
The concept behind adding external sites is that all of your content will be posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it will syndicate automatically to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external sites have been added to your traffic system, content with links pointing back to your website will be automatically fed to these platforms. Your content and site will be exposed to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some of these third-party sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings to help 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:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of useful information, tools and reports about your website.
Once your account is set up, use your details with web traffic settings and notifications 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 performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data are set up, you can add traffic monitoring code to WordPress using a plugin and send data instantly to other useful applications and web properties.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account and entering site data, you can use this information with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers website owners a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, 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 web traffic system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social media and social bookmarking accounts in order to 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 accounts and bring new visitors to your site.
You should have pages set up with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can You can syndicate your content to many social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we will look at some of these tools in more detail further below and during the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add an RSS feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own RebelMouse account.
There are many different platforms you can incorporate into your web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Global Settings
Your WordPress administration area contains a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Section)
As stated in 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 configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services text area
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is listed …
(WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(Notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
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 your content gets seen by readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your site to view 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 your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to ping all the update services you have listed whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion Settings
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)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks Section)
The examples below show some of the ways SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With SEO-Friendly URLs
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more visitors to your site
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is completely immune from being attacked by hackers.
(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.
For more information, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages more indexable …
(Yoast SEO – WP Plugins For SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed to Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with members of their online communities can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social sharing to your website easily with WordPress plugins)
You can add social features to your website easily with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social sharing plugins let you specify which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which users can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress Traffic Generation Theme Features – Configuration
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 the layout and design of your site, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes allow you to configure settings and options for improved traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and unwanted traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do any type of business online, you need to ensure that your site is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
Post Tags & Post Categories
Post tags and post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your web pages.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s categories and tags should be reviewed and set up during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags that have been set up.
Add A Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites find more of your online content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Your Site’s 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching online for your site enter the wrong web address into their browser or click on a dead hyperlink, they are presented with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found page)
A 404 Not Found page can redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do to begin attracting more traffic is add new content on a consistent basis.
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 …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform this stage of the traffic automation process typically takes some web developers months 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 addressed in the next section of our WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy and quick to implement.
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