Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a site into an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is add great content on a consistent basis to automatically drive more traffic!)
In Part Two, we focused on critical setup decisions. We explained 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 using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration phase of the traffic system. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured in order to ensure that new web traffic will automatically start flowing as you begin to publish new content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by website owners as their greatest challenge online. Also, the business landscape is becoming ever more competitive worldwide and businesses are exploring every advantage they can that can help you improve their results and performance online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand is a tremendous competitive advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website means having a significant advantage from the word “go”.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to explain the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a joke.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Things are going well in the gizmo-making factory when production suddenly comes to a halt.
As no one can figure out what is wrong, the plant manager decides to call in an expert.
The expert arrives shortly afterwards and, without saying a word, immediately heads towards the control box. After staring silently at the circuit board for no more than 2 minutes, the expert then produces a teeny-weeny hammer from his tool box and makes a single tap near the left edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything springs back to life.
The floor manager is greatly relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager receives an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
Feeling angry, the factory manager dials the expert. Demanding to know why they have been charged such a ludicrous fee for less than five minutes 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 #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors consistently to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to be compensated fairly for years spent acquiring the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly repair a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP blog set up so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social sites and dozens of other web 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 driving traffic to your website?)
While the solution to many problems often seems ridiculously easy in hindsight, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than just installing a website and configuring a few settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up to get specific outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure in order to make sure things will function as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing a piece of software, clicking a button … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of different parts such as your server, your website or blog, and various third-party sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the configuration process)
Let’s examine these steps in more detail.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for site installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about configuring settings and options in your server that affect how your site will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web 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 may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like implementing spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step is to configure a number of third-party sites.
External Services
The idea behind setting up external sites is that all content will be posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will be automatically distributed to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external sites into your network, content with links pointing back to your site is automatically added to these platforms. Your content and business will benefit from exposure online, helping your business tap into a new audience and traffic source.
Some of these sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress 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 Search Console)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with useful data, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
Once your Google Search Console account is set up, your details can be used to automate traffic-related 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 site’s results, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up your Google Analytics account, you can add traffic monitoring code to all of your pages in WordPress via any of several Google Analytics plugins and send data instantly to various other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account and entering site data with Bing, use this information to integrate and automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to grow 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 explain how to integrate these features into your automated traffic system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your 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 and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site.
Set up profiles with all of the popular 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 syndication tools.
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute social content to social networks)
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 account.
There are many different solutions you can incorporate into your own traffic system. Please 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.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Global Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As stated below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally configured your 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 section
By default, only one service is listed …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
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
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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 your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s decision 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 most important setting here as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically ping various update services when 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 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 Screen)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your post permalinks …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
If you need help setting up permalinks, refer to this tutorial: Changing WordPress Permalinks
WP Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of web security.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and bots.
More information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO Plugin)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your site’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find, classify and index, it also lets you specify how to present your content in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with members of their social networks can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website using WordPress plugins.
Many social sharing plugins allow you to choose 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 likes), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring Settings – Themes
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 design and layout aspects of your site, some themes also give you options for improving SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your content is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic Configuration – Additional Steps
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic system configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can damage your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you make money online, it’s important that your site complies with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article about the importance of having a compliant website here:
Categories & Post Tags
Post tags and categories help to improve your site’s search optimization, which improves traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.)
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 Stage.
When configuring your web site to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories you have set up.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools find your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, whereas an XML sitemap is mostly filled with code that only search engines can understand. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just from 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.
404 Page – An Additional Source Of Traffic!
When visitors enter the wrong URL into their browser or click on links pointing to pages on your site that no longer exist, they are presented with a 404 page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 Not Found error page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do to begin attracting more web traffic is post web content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different components and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many web developers months to learn.
Once you have 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 WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part Three
To keep reading this article, 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 cost-effectively and drive traffic organically using a WordPress-driven website and proven marketing methods that are easy to implement.
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