Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your website into an automated web traffic machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this article series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is publish new content regularly to automatically drive more traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase of the traffic automation process. 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 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 automation process. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to automatically attract traffic when you begin to publish new content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration
The ability 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 exploring any and every advantage available to improve their performance online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage over the competition. An expertly configured WordPress site gives you an immediate competitive advantage from the word “go”.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website 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 describe the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is more labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Let me illustrate this point with a little story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All was going just fine in the gizmo-making plant when suddenly, things ground to a halt.
As no one could figure out what happened, the plant manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert headed out immediately to the main control box. After staring silently at the board for 2 minutes, the expert then produced a teensy-weensy hammer from his shirt pocket and made a gentle tap about 1 cm from the right edge of the control unit.
Immediately, the whole workshop lit up and returned once again to normal.
The manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received a bill for $5,000.
The factory manager picked up the phone and rang the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a ridiculously high fee for less than 5 minutes work and promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement 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 traffic to their sites.
How much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the equipment stopped functioning and no one in the business was able to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to get paid fairly for having invested years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress website set up and configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other online properties would be immediately 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 website?)
While experts often make complex solutions look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring some basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to get certain functionalities on your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts you need to set up to get specific results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to ensure that things will work as planned, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing one or two plugins, clicking a button … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of different parts including your web server, your site, and various external sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simplified diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the activities involved in 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 website installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is configuring settings in your web server that affect how you will handle 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 beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your business may attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like implementing spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess and error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting 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 is to set up and configure various external sites.
External Web Properties And Solutions – Configuration
The concept behind adding external sites is that all content gets posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it then gets automatically distributed to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external services have been added to your system, content with links pointing back to your site gets automatically fed to search, social and aggregator sites. Your site will receive exposure online, helping your business tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the external 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, you will want to set up the following accounts before configuring your WordPress site’s settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with important information, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account, use your account information with traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, traffic tracking data can be integrated with WordPress via any of several Google Analytics plugins used with other applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account and entering site data with Bing Webmaster Tools, the details can be used to automate traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers both the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media and social bookmarking accounts 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 attract new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have profiles set up with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, 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 the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we will cover some of these tools in more detail further below and in the Automation phase).
(There are many social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging platforms and RSS aggregators that can act 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 lets you add a feed from your WordPress blog …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute social content to social networks)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your social feed.
There are various sites and platforms you can incorporate into your traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
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 specifically configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(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
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 content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website to read 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 main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically notify various update services whenever new posts get 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
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 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks enable your site to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks Section)
The examples below show some of the ways your site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more visitors to your site
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is completely immune from being attacked by hackers.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to botnets and hackers.
Go here for more information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your site more search engine friendly …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress Plugins For SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, crawl and index, it allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site using WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social features to their website using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to choose which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which users 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 traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring layout and design elements of your website, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a free theme) have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Configuring Additional Sections Of WordPress For More Traffic
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do business online (or are planning to), you need to make sure that your site is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article about how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your website or blog here:
Post Tags & Post Categories
Tags & categories help search engines index your website, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help search engines index your website, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post categories and tags should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Process.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites find more of your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, whereas an XML sitemap contains code that only search bots can understand. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your Site’s 404 Error Page
When online visitors enter the wrong URL or click on a link pointing to a destination on your website that no longer exists, they are presented with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found page)
A 404 Not Found page can redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up in your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do then to begin attracting more traffic is publish new content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration stage of the traffic automation process can take many web professionals a long time to acquire.
Once you have expertly 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 section of the series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of an article series designed to help website owners learn how to grow their business and drive traffic automatically with a WordPress-driven website and proven web marketing methods.
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