Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a website into an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to automatically start generating new traffic is publish web content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we looked at critical setup decisions. We explained 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 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 the traffic blueprint. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site to ensure that web traffic will automatically start flowing simply by publishing web content consistently to your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business becoming so much more competitive, it’s worth looking into any and every advantage that can help you increase your own competitiveness online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage over the competition. Having an expertly configured WordPress site gives your business a flying start from the moment your website 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 one way to describe the main difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take additional work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Allow me to illustrate this with an amusing story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All is humming along in the gizmo factory when things grind to a sudden halt.
No one can figure out what’s wrong and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrives and walks directly to the control box. After staring silently at the wires and circuitry for no more than 5 minutes, the expert then takes out a tiny little hammer and makes a gentle tap near the top-left edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything comes back to life.
The manager is overjoyed 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 request for payment of $5,000.
Bewildered and bordering on a sense of outrage, the factory manager dials the expert. Why had he charged them such a ridiculously high fee for less than five minutes work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive new visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor was able to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for years spent building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately repair a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a web site configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networks and dozens of other web properties would be immediately 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 things look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than just installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up to get desired results
- Which settings need to be configured to make sure everything works as envisioned, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically challenging, but it’s quite involved and complicated. This is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring one or two plugins, configuring some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of different parts including your server, your website or blog, and various third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we create a simplified diagram showing the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the configuration process)
Let’s examine these steps in more detail.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your site will attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at 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 errors, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to set up and configure a number of external sites.
Configuring External Services
The idea behind choosing external sites is that all content is posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it radiates outwards automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external platforms to your setup, content linking back to your site will get automatically published on these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social media accounts, even to users of the platform itself. Your content will receive exposure online, helping you tap into a whole new audience and traffic source.
Some sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to speed up the process 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 Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with useful information, tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your Google Search Console account, use this information with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic results, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account and site details, you can add traffic monitoring code to WordPress using a Google Analytics plugin and send data automatically to many other online applications and web properties.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account and site data with Bing are set up, use the account information with traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to grow a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which various 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 automated traffic generation system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social media accounts set up 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 bring new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have accounts set up with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose those that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools (we discuss some of these tools in more detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add a feed from your WordPress blog …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute your content to social networks)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse page.
There are many different solutions you can incorporate into your web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
Configuring Your WordPress Site For Traffic
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.
Global Settings – WordPress
By default, WordPress includes a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
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 Section)
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 purposely configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services box
By default, this section displays only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section and WordPress will do the rest …
(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
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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 visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website to view the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to automatically notify various update services whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
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 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow your site to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks Screen)
Here are some of the ways your permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that help to add just about 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
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your web sites is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and botnets.
More information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving improving the way search engines find, crawl and index your web pages …
(SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your website’s SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site using WordPress plugins.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to specify which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring WordPress Traffic Features In 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 the design and layout of your website, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing features to your site is as easy as clicking a few buttons and enabling the function …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Other Important Features To Configure
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or are planning to), you need to make sure that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website, see this article:
WordPress Post Categories And Tags
Tags and post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your pages.
(WordPress categories help to improve your site’s search optimization, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your site’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 tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Visitor Site Map
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications discover more of your website content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Only search engines can read XML sitemaps. Although search engines like 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 can result in increased traffic.
Don’t Forget Your Site’s 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching online for your site enter the wrong web address or click on a link pointing to a destination on your website that no longer exists, they are greeted with an error – page not found message …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your web server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then is publish web content consistently to automatically start generating more traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and expertise required to perform the configuration process typically takes some web developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as can be automated. This step is covered in the next article in our WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Part 3
To keep reading, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of an article series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic organically using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy to implement.
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