Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a site into an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to automatically attract more traffic is post content on a consistent basis!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the automation process. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration stage of the traffic system. We will help you understand why an expertly configured WordPress site is different, and what type of work needs to be done to make sure that when everything is set up and fully configured, web traffic will automatically start flowing as you begin to post content regularly to your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With competition becoming increasingly more difficult businesses are researching any opportunity they can to get better results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a huge advantage over other competitors. Having an expertly configured website gives your business a flying start from the moment your site is launched.
The Configuration Process Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to understand the difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a little story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Things are running smoothly in the widget assembly workshop when suddenly, the machinery grinds to a halt.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert goes immediately to the main control box. After staring silently at the wiring diagrams for less than 2 minutes, the expert then takes out a tiny little hammer from his tool belt and makes a gentle tap about two cm from the left-hand corner of the control unit.
Immediately, the whole workshop lights up and returns once again to normal.
The plant manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who 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.
Outraged and furious, the factory manager calls the expert. Why were they expected to pay such an exorbitant fee for so little time delivering such minimal amount of work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the plant stand to lose when the machines stopped functioning and no one in the business was able to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to ask to be compensated fairly for years spent building up the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly assess and fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your website or blog configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social media and dozens of other web properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your site?)
Although experts often make difficult things look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party accounts you need to set up and activate to get desired results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to make sure things will work as expected, 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. This is because it’s not as easy as installing a piece of software, clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many components including your server, your WordPress site, and various external sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine what’s involved in more detail.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your web server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web-hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your site may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
After your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step is to configure various external sites.
External Services
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all content is published to a central location (your site) and from there, it syndicates automatically to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external sites to your system, content linked back to your website will get automatically published on search, social and aggregator accounts. Your site will then be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your 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 before configuring your WordPress site:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of important data, tools and reports about your website.
Once your account with Google Search Console have been set up, you can use the account information to integrate and automate traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details are set up, traffic monitoring code can be added to WordPress via a simple Google Analytics plugin used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, you can use this information with traffic-related 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 2, WordPress provides users with a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social accounts set up before you can 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 accounts and bring new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have profiles set up with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social sites you can post your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(There are lots of social sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online web platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
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 social feed.
There are various platforms you can add to your traffic blueprint. Please feel free to 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 site’s settings.
Configuring WordPress For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Global Settings – WordPress
Your WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains an important and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As described 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 specifically configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is available …
(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 …
(You can 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 in this section can influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to read 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 in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to instantly ping the update services list 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
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 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your permalink URLs …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
If you need help setting up WordPress permalinks, go here: Setting Up Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s take a brief look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with the effects of 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 simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your website.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
For more information, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving improving how search engines like Google find, classify and index your website …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by making your site more search engine friendly)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, crawl and index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social features to your website with WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social sharing buttons to your website with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social share plugins allow you to specify which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress – Traffic Generation Theme Features
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, some themes also include built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons and enabling the feature …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can cause serious damage to your business when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online, you need to make sure that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
WordPress Post Tags & Post Categories
Tags & categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your website.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your web pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s post tags and post categories should be discussed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phases.
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 benefits.
A Site Map Of Your Pages and Posts
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 sites discover your online 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. Although Google will index your site just using 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.
Your Site’s 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching for your website type in the wrong URL or click on links pointing to destinations on your website that no longer exist, they are greeted with a 404 page …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 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 plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then to begin attracting new traffic is post fresh content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The skills and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many website professionals months to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is covered in the next article in our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part Three
To continue reading about this topic, click here:
This article is part of an article series designed to help website owners learn how to grow their business online with a WordPress-driven website and proven online marketing methods.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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