Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive visitors automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this article series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to attract new traffic is add fresh content regularly!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. 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 website, and what to do if your existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration phase of the traffic system. We will help you understand what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different, and what type of work is required to make sure that when everything is fully set up and configured, you will drive new visitors automatically when you publish new content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Also, the business landscape is becoming increasingly more competitive on a global scale and businesses are researching any advantage they believe will help them improve their performance and results online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage. With an expertly configured website, you have a flying start as soon as your site is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here’s a simple way to explain the differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
To illustrate this here’s a story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Everything was going well in the widget-making workshop when all of a sudden, things stopped working.
As no one could figure out what happened, the plant manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
The expert arrived soon afterwards and, without uttering a word, walked immediately towards the control box. After staring at the box for what seemed like 5 minutes or less, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy little hammer from his shirt pocket and made a single tap near the left corner of the unit.
Immediately, everything sprang to life once more.
The manager was grateful and relieved as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager received a request of payment for services for the amount of $5,000.
The factory manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why they were charged such a large amount of money for less than 5 minutes work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving web traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one in 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 investing years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately repair a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WordPress site configured so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social followers from Facebook and Twitter and dozens of other online properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although the solution to many challenges can seem quite simple once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than installing a website and configuring a few settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services need to be set up to get desired results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured to ensure that things function as planned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite involved and time-consuming. This is because it’s not as easy as installing a solution, clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your site, and a number of external sites or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If the activities involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these areas.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your website can attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like implementing spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up 404 error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
After your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites.
External Accounts
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all content gets published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it then gets automatically distributed to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external sites into your setup, content pointing back to your website is automatically published on these platforms. Your content and business will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of these sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress 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 before configuring your settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with important data, tools, and reports about their website.
Once your account has been set up, you can use this information to integrate and automate web 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 website’s traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, account information can be easily integrated with WordPress via 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 and site data have been set up, the account details can be used 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 discussed in Part Two, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your traffic system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need your social 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 accounts and get new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have pages set up with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can You can syndicate your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we cover some of these tools in greater detail during the Automation phase).
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
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 social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse social feed.
There are various solutions you can incorporate into your own traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up third-party site accounts, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Global WordPress Settings
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Section)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(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 visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers 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 blog 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 in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to instantly notify all the update services you have specified in the Update Services section whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Section)
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 blogs 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
Permalinks allow you to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks Screen)
Here are some of the options for configuring your search-friendly URLS …
(Configuring permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: How To Set Up WordPress Permalinks
WP Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No web site is completely safe from being hacked.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
Go here for more information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web content easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index …
(WordPress Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site 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 pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with others can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site with WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins let you specify which 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 social plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which visitors 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 design and layout elements of your website, many themes also include built-in options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic System – Additional Configuration
Last but not least in the WordPress 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 website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle good and unwanted traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do business online, it’s important that your site remains compliant with all government laws and regulations.
(Is Your Site Legally Compliant?)
For a detailed article on why it’s important to have a compliant website, go here:
Post Categories & Tags
Post tags and categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s SEO.
(Post categories help to improve your site’s SEO, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your site’s tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags that have been set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools discover more of 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 not the same things. Only search engines can understand an XML sitemap. 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.
Don’t Forget Your 404 Page Not Found
When visitors enter the wrong web address or click on a dead hyperlink, they will normally be presented with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then is publish web content consistently to begin bringing more traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of skills and knowledge required to perform this process can take some website professionals a long time 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 the series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping website owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively and drive traffic sustainably with a WordPress-powered website and proven marketing strategies that are easy to implement.
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