Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is publish great content regularly to start generating new web traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. We explained the best way to get started 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 existing website was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration stage of the traffic system. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured to automatically get new visitors when you begin to add fresh content consistently on your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business becoming so much more competitive, it’s worth learning about any and every opportunity you can to get better results online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous competitive advantage. For businesses, having an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start from the moment their website is launched.
The Configuration Stage Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website 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 differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does a whole lot more work 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) …
Everything was moving along in the widget-making assembly line when things came to a sudden stop.
No one could figure out what has happened and so the manager decided to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert walked immediately towards the control box. After staring silently at the electronic components for no more than 3 minutes, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy hammer from his pocket and made a gentle tap about one and half inches from the left-hand side of the box.
Immediately, everything returned to normal.
The manager was grateful and relieved as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager received a bill for $5,000.
The factory manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why the expert had charged them so much for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrived and was placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving visitors to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the equipment stopped working and no one in the business had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to ask to be compensated fairly for years spent acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to assess and avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WP website or blog set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest 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 driving traffic to your site?)
While many experts often make complex solutions look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to work things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up to get desired results
- Which options need to be configured to make sure everything will work as planned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. This is because it’s not as simple as installing and configuring a plugin, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all of this and so much more.
The configuration phase is a complex process that involves your web server, your website or blog, and a number of external sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we create a simplified diagram of the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the configuration process)
Let’s take a better look at what’s involved.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes. What we are talking about, is configuring settings and options in your server that affect how you will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your webhosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic you can attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for good and unwanted traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
After your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step is to configure a number of external sites.
3rd-Party Accounts Integration
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all content will get published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will be distributed automatically to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external platforms have been added to your setup, content with links pointing back to your website will be automatically syndicated to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social media sites, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your content and website will benefit from added exposure online, helping you tap into a whole new audience and source of traffic.
Some third-party sites and online services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your settings 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 site’s settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters)
Google Search Console lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account and site data with Google Webmasters are set up, this information can be used to automate web traffic settings 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 traffic results, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your account and site data, you can add traffic tracking code to WordPress via any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data instantly to other applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account has been set up, you can use this information with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers website owners the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option 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 at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your web traffic 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 get new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your social media and social bookmarking accounts before you can 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 pages and drive new visitors to your site.
You should set up profiles with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with and post your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose those that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we discuss some of these tools in more detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging technology platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute your 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 own RebelMouse website.
There are various sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your own web traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
Configuring Your WordPress Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
By default, your WordPress administration area includes a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(WordPress Settings – 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 intentionally chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress will do the rest …
(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 have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears 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 blog to get 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 traffic is concerned, however, the most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to automatically notify various update services whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks Screen)
The examples below show some of the ways search-friendly URLS can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
WordPress Traffic Generation Plugins – Configuration
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including 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 website for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, website security is something you simply cannot ignore.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to bots and hackers.
More information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(WordPress SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your site’s SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find and index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with others can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their website using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social sharing buttons to your website using free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social share plugins let you choose which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring Settings – WP 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 the design and layout of your site, many themes also provide built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure settings and options for improved traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your content is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure For Better Traffic
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 the following:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you make money online, it’s important that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Compliant?)
To learn more about the importance of having a compliant website, go here:
WordPress Post Categories & Tags
Post categories & tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your website.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s post categories and tags 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 benefits.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
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 applications find your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just using 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 results in increased traffic.
Don’t Forget Your WordPress 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching online for your site type in the wrong web address or click on a dead hyperlink, they are greeted with an error page (known as a 404 Not Found page) …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 page can be turned into a useful source of traffic to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then is add new content regularly to automatically attract more traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different components and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some web developers a long time to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is explained in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Three
To continue reading this article, click here:
This article is part of an article series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online with a WordPress-driven website and proven web marketing methods.
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