Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic generating machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to start generating new traffic is add great content on a consistent basis!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase of the traffic automation process. 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 using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this section, we look at the configuration phase of the traffic blueprint. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured to ensure that traffic will automatically start flowing when you publish new content on your site.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business getting increasingly more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth looking into every advantage available to improve your own performance and results online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage. For business owners, having an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start as soon as their site is launched.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to describe the main difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only is additional work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with an anecdote.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All is going fine in the widget factory when the equipment suddenly grinds to a halt.
As no one can figure out what’s wrong, the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert immediately goes to the control box. After staring silently at the board for about 2 minutes or less, the expert then takes out a tiny hammer and makes a very gentle tap near the right side of the box.
Immediately, everything starts working again.
The manager is greatly overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the factory manager receives an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
Bewildered and bordering on a sense of outrage, the manager picks up the phone and rings the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged so much for less than five minutes work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives and is placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive web traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor was able to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to ask to be compensated fairly for having spent years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your blog fully set up and configured so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social sites and dozens of other traffic-generating 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 website?)
Although experts often make complicated situations and problems look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than installing a website and configuring a few settings. It involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which services need to be set up and activated to achieve desired results
- Which options need to be configured to ensure that things function as planned, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing a solution, tweaking some settings in your dashboard area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase is a process that involves your server, your WordPress site, and a number of third-party sites and services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If the activities involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram of the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these areas in more detail.
Configuring The Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings in your web server that affect how you will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web hosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your business will attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like configuring spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
Once your server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step is to set up and configure various external sites and services.
Integration With External Solutions
The basic concept of choosing external sites is that all of your content should be published from a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, be distributed automatically to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external sites to your configuration, content linking back to your website is automatically added to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social sites, even to users of the platform itself. Your website receives added exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some external sites and solutions will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress settings to help 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:
Google Search Console
(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 useful information, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account is with Google have been set up, you can use the information to integrate and automate traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details have been set up, traffic monitoring data can be easily integrated with WordPress using plugins and instantly sent to many other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account and entering site data, you can use your account information to integrate and automate web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated web traffic generation system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need your social media accounts set up in order to integrate these with 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.
You should set up accounts and profile pages with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick those that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(You can post your content to many social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add an RSS 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 displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your page.
There are various technologies and third-party applications you can add to your web 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 server settings and set up third-party site accounts, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
Configuring WordPress
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As stated below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 visitors 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 shows up in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content 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 traffic is concerned, however, the most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to instantly notify various update services when new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, do not check this box …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings)
Discussion
Although this section is 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the ways your permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, see this tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring Settings – WordPress Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
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 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 ignore the importance of securing your website or blog.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
Go here for more information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your site more search engine friendly …
(WordPress SEO plugins help increase traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines to index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with members of their social networks can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social sharing features to your website easily with free or inexpensive plugins)
You can add social sharing to your website easily using WordPress plugins.
Many social share plugins let you specify which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring design and layout aspects of your website, some themes also give you options for improving SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) can be configured for improved traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure For Better Traffic Flow
Last (but by no means least) in the configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in visitor numbers, 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 as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of business online, you need to make sure that your site stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help understanding why it’s important to have a compliant website, refer to this article:
Post Tags And Post Categories
Categories and post tags help search engines better classify and index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(WordPress categories help search engines better classify and index your web pages, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s post categories and tags should be set up during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications discover your online content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. 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 engine bots can read. Although Google can 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.
404 Error Page – An Additional Source Of Traffic!
When visitors searching for your site type in the wrong URL into their browser or click on an invalid link, they are greeted with a 404 error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
A 404 Not Found page can be configured into a useful source of traffic to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 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 plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do to attract new traffic is post content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration process can take some web professionals 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 addressed 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 here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy to implement.
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