Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to begin bringing new web traffic is post fresh content on a regular basis!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase of the automation process. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this section of the series, we discuss the configuration phase of the traffic blueprint. We will explain why an expertly configured WordPress site is different. You will also learn how much work is required to ensure that when everything is fully configured, you can automatically start getting new traffic when you post web content to your website.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive worldwide and are researching any advantage they can to increase their competitiveness online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage over other competitors. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the very beginning.
The Configuration Process Is What Makes All The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here’s one way to describe the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
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 expert knowledge.
Let me illustrate this point with an amusing anecdote.
A Semi-True Story …
All was moving along in the gizmo-making workshop when suddenly, things stopped working.
As no one could figure out what happened, the manager decided to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert walked immediately to the main control box. After staring at the wiring board for less than 2 minutes, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy hammer and made a single tap near the right-hand side of the box.
Immediately, everything came back to life.
The plant manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager received a service bill for $5,000.
The manager called the expert, demanding to know why he had charged them such an exorbitant fee for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work and promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrived in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive new traffic to their sites.
How much money did the widget factory stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one on the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for having invested years building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to assess and fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog set up and configured so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networks and dozens of other online properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your site?)
While the solution to many problems often seems ridiculously easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which third-party services you need to set up and activate to achieve specific results
- Which options need to be configured to ensure that processes will run how you have planned, etc.
(Generating new 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. It’s not just about installing a solution, configuring some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your server, your web site, and various third-party sites and services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we create a simple diagram of the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine what’s involved.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your web server that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your business can attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step is to configure various external sites and services.
External Services
The concept behind setting up external sites is that all of your content should be published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, get automatically distributed to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After adding these external sites to your configuration, content linked back to your website is automatically published on search, social and aggregator sites. Your business will receive exposure online, helping your business tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site to speed up the process 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 before configuring your site:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of important data, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site details with Google, this information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic results, SEO, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrals, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account, you can add traffic monitoring code to all of your web pages in WordPress using plugins and feed data automatically to many other online applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account and entering site details, the information 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 explained in Part Two, WordPress offers users the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need your social media 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 bring new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts and profile pages with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select those that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we will cover some of these tools in greater detail further below and during the Automation phase).
(There are many social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online 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 site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute social content to social networks)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your social feed.
There are various platforms you can incorporate into your own traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Area)
As stated in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have purposely chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services section
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section …
(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 your content gets seen by readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to read the rest of the content from a partial feed, 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 here is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to automatically ping 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, do not check this box …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion Settings
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 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 Screen)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the ways your permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
To learn more about setting up WordPress permalinks, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot afford to ignore the importance of web security.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets.
Go here for more info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages easy for search engines to index …
(SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your site’s SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your website’s SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with their social networks can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing features to your website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social share plugins let you 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 shares), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
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, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure For Improved Traffic Results
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can damage your business when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you do business online, it’s important that your website is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article on how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website here:
Post Categories & Post Tags
WordPress post categories & tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your website.
(Post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s SEO.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s post tags and categories should be set up 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 Site Map
A visitor site map that displays all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools find your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for site 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 thing. Only search engines can understand XML sitemaps. Although search engines like Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – Don’t Forget To Configure It!
When visitors type in the wrong URL or click on a hyperlink pointing to a page on your website that no longer exists, they are presented with a 404 error page …
(A 404 Not Found page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to funnel visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do then is post fresh content on a regular basis to drive traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration process can take many web 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 the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping website owners learn how to grow their business online using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
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