Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to start attracting web traffic is post fresh content regularly!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your site was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we look at the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. We will show you how a WordPress site should be configured to automatically bring visitors as you begin adding fresh content on your website.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With business getting ever more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth looking into any opportunity you can to increase your own competitiveness online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage over the competition. An expertly configured website gives you a flying start and an immediate competitive advantage online.
Configuration 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 is a simple way to understand the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take additional labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with an anecdote.
Knowing Where To Tap
Things were going well in the gizmo-making plant when everything suddenly stopped working.
As no one could figure out what happened, the plant manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and headed immediately towards the main control box. After staring silently at the electronic components for what seemed like 2 minutes, the expert then produced a little hammer from his pocket and made a gentle tap about two cm from the left edge of the box.
Immediately, everything returned once again to normal.
The manager was greatly relieved as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager received an invoice for $5,000.
The manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why they were charged such a large amount of money for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one on the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to be compensated fairly for having invested years developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your blog set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other traffic-generating 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 website?)
While the solution to many challenges often seems quite simple once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring some of the site settings for a client. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services you need to set up and activate to achieve certain results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to make sure everything works how you have envisioned, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage 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 and configuring a piece of software, clicking on a button or two, or tweaking some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of different components including your web server, your website or blog, and various third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved in more detail.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for site installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings and options in your web server that affect how you will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your site can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like integrating spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess and error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After fine-tuning your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and services.
Third-Party Accounts Integration
The purpose of adding external sites is that all of your content should be posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, syndicate automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external platforms have been added to your system, content with links pointing back to your site is automatically added to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social media accounts, even to users of the platform itself. Your website will benefit from additional exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of these external sites will need to be set up before configuring your settings to help speed up the configuration 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:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with useful information, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site details with Google Webmasters, your information can be used to integrate and automate traffic settings and notifications 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 performance, SEO, marketing activities, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your account, your account information can be easily integrated with WordPress using a Google Analytics plugin and and 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 Search Console. After setting up your account and entering site details with Bing, use the account information with traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your traffic system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need to set up your social 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 and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can syndicate your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick those that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will look at some of these tools in greater detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are many social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute social content to social networks)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your own RebelMouse social feed.
There are various solutions that can be incorporated into your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website Or Blog
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress – Global Settings
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Screen)
As described in this 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 – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section displays only one entry …
(Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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
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, choosing to display the full text 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 view 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 want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically notify all the update services you have listed in the Update Services area whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(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 posts, 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)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings enable your site to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress Plugins – Configuration
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add just about every type of functionality to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic to your site
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling 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, you simply cannot ignore the importance of website security.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(Yoast SEO – WP Plugin)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your site’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with their networks can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing features to your site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website with WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins let you select 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 followers), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress Theme Features – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, some themes also provide built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing features to your site is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or plan to), it’s important that your website stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
WordPress Post Tags And Categories
Post categories and tags help search engines classify and index your pages, which improves traffic.
(Post categories help search engines index your pages, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your site’s post tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
When considering ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the tags and categories you have set up.
Add A Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover more of your website content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Only search engine bots can interpret XML sitemaps. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Your Site’s 404 Page
When visitors searching online for your site enter the wrong web address or click on an invalid hyperlink, they are greeted with a 404 Not Found error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your server, there are several WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do then to drive web traffic is publish content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and expertise required to perform the configuration process typically takes some web professionals months to learn.
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 covered in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To keep reading, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively with a WordPress-driven website and proven web marketing strategies.
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