Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your site into an automated web traffic generating machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this 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 site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to automatically attract more traffic is publish great content regularly!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase of the automation process. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section of the series, we discuss the configuration phase of the traffic system. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site to ensure that traffic will automatically start flowing when you begin publishing new content on your website.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive and are looking for any and every opportunity they can to improve their results and performance online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage over other competitors. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start from the moment their website is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to understand the main difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let me illustrate this point with an amusing anecdote.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Things are going just fine in the widget workshop when the equipment suddenly stops.
No one can figure out what is wrong and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert heads directly towards the control box. After staring silently at the wiring board for less than 5 minutes, the expert then takes out a teensy-weensy hammer from his pocket and makes a single tap about one cm from the left corner of the unit.
Immediately, all machinery inside the factory floor returns to normal.
The floor manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager receives a service bill for $5,000.
Confused and bewildered, the factory manager picks up the phone and rings the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged so much for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to demand fair compensation for investing years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to assess and fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP website or blog configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
While many experts often make complicated things look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than just installing a website and configuring some of the site settings for clients. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which services need to be set up and activated to achieve desired outcomes
- Which options need to be configured to make sure processes will work as envisioned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite complicated. It’s not as easy as installing and configuring a solution, configuring some settings in your admin area or clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of different components including your server, your website, and various external sites or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If all the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps.
Your Server – Configuration
We’re not talking 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 configuring settings and options in your web server specifically for handling web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your business can attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like configuring spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites and services.
External Services
The basic concept of setting up external sites is that all of your content should be posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, get automatically distributed to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After adding these external services to your configuration, content linked back to your website gets automatically syndicated to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and website benefits from increased exposure online, helping you tap into a new audience and traffic source.
Some of the external sites will need to be set up before configuring your 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:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with useful information, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your account, use the details with web traffic 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, search engine referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, you can add your account information to WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data automatically to various other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account has been set up, this information can be used to automate traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers website owners the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan 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 explain how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social accounts set up in order to 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 sites and get new traffic to your site.
You should have accounts and profile pages with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick those that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools (we discuss some of these tools in more detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add an RSS feed from your WordPress blog …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute social content to social networks)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your page.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications you can incorporate into 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 web server and set up third-party site accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Site Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Screen)
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 discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could play a part in 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 excerpts, 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 ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to ping various update services whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion
Although discussion settings are 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings Screen)
Here are some of the ways your permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
To learn more about setting up WordPress permalinks, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using Permalinks
WordPress – Traffic Generation Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is safe from a cyber attack.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to hackers and botnets.
For more information, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your site more search engine friendly)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your website’s SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with their own friends and networks can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you provide content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing to your website easily with free or inexpensive plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Many social share plugins allow you to choose which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring Settings – WP Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring design and layout elements of your website, some themes also provide built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your content is as easy as clicking a few buttons and enabling the feature …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Additional Features Of WordPress To Configure
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Compliance 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 as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you do any type of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site complies with all government regulations.
(Does Your Site Comply With The Law?)
We have created a detailed article about why it’s important to have a legally compliant website here:
Tags & Post Categories
Post categories & tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your web pages.
(Categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your website.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your site’s categories and tags earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
When configuring your site to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Add A Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your pages and posts 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. HTML site maps are web pages that provide readers with a logical map of how your content is organized, while XML sitemaps are mostly just a bunch of code that only search engines can interpret. Although Google can index your pages just using 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 Error Page
When visitors searching online for your website enter the wrong URL into their browser or click on hyperlinks pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they will normally be presented with a 404 page …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do to automatically attract more traffic is add fresh content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many web professionals months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is addressed in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive tutorial series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic automatically with a WordPress website or blog and proven marketing strategies that are easy to implement.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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