Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic generating machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to generate more web traffic is add web content consistently!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your site was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this section, we look at the configuration stage of the traffic automation process. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to get visitors automatically as you begin to add new content on a regular basis on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Also, the business landscape is becoming so much more competitive on a global scale and businesses are researching any opportunity they can to increase their competitiveness online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge competitive advantage. Having an expertly configured WordPress site gives your business a flying start and a significant competitive advantage online.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s a simple way to explain the difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is extra work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing anecdote.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Everything was going fine in the widget-making plant when things suddenly just stopped.
No one could figure out what happened and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately walked towards the control box. After staring at the box for 3 minutes or less, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy hammer and made a very gentle tap near the left-hand side of the box.
Immediately, the plant sprang to life.
The floor manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged such a large amount of money for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of 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 number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to be compensated fairly for years spent acquiring the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly assess and repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP website or blog fully set up so all you had to do is publish new content and search engines, social networks and dozens of other web properties would be automatically 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 website?)
While the solution to many problems is often ridiculously easy in hindsight, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring settings for a client. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get certain functionalities on your site.
- Which services you need to set up to get specific outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure in order to ensure that processes will run as planned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved and time-consuming. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring one or two plugins, clicking on a button or two, or tweaking some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of different parts including your server, your website or blog, and a number of external sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simple flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these steps in more detail.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your server that affect how your site will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your business can attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
Once your server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites.
External Services
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all content gets published from a central location (your site) and from there, it then gets automatically distributed to other components 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 linked back to your site is automatically added to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and business will receive additional exposure online, helping your business tap into a new audience and source of traffic.
Some external sites and solutions 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:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmasters lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with useful information, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
Once your account has been with Google have been set up, the account details can be used to integrate and automate traffic-related 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 efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details are set up, account code can be added to WordPress via a plugin and and sent to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account is with Bing are set up, you can use this information with web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress provides users with a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to build a professional business presence online.
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 at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your traffic system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need your social accounts set up in order to configure these as part of your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and profiles set up with all of the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can syndicate your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select those that will work well with your system and/or content syndication tools (we will cover some of these tools in more detail in the Automation phase).
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add a feed from your WordPress site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute your content to social networks)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse account.
There are various sites and platforms you can add to your traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services section
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section displays only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – 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 Settings
This section affects how visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site to read the rest of the content from excerpts, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as your traffic system is concerned, however, the main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to ping the update services list whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion Settings
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 sites 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 Section)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks in WordPress here: How To Change WordPress Permalinks
WordPress Traffic Plugin Settings – Configuration
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to bring more visitors to your site
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is safe from a cyber attack.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
More info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO Plugin)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your website’s SEO. Properly configured, this 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. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with members of their social communities can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their website with WordPress plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Many social plugins allow you to specify which social 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 likes), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, some themes also give you built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes can be configured for improved traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your content is as easy as clicking a few buttons to configure your options and enable the function …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Areas For More Traffic Results
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you make money online, you need to make sure that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Compliant?)
We have written a detailed article about why it’s important to have a compliant website here:
Post Tags And Categories
WordPress post categories & tags help search engines classify and index your web pages, which improves traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your web pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s post tags and post categories during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories you have set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, while an XML sitemap is mostly code that only search engine bots can interpret. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin 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.
404 Error Page – An Additional Source Of Traffic!
When visitors type in the wrong web address or click on a dead hyperlink, they will normally be greeted with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(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 WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do then to automatically start generating new web traffic is add content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform this process typically takes many website professionals a long time to acquire.
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 explained in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Part Three
To continue reading this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help website owners learn how to grow their business online with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven web marketing methods.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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