Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is post new content on a regular basis to start generating new web traffic!)
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 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured in order to automatically start getting visitors as you begin adding new content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business becoming increasingly more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth learning about any advantage that can help you increase your own competitiveness online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage over the competition. An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a significant competitive advantage from the word “go”.
Configuration 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 developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to describe the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Allow me to illustrate this with an amusing little story.
A Semi-True Story …
All was going fine in the gizmo plant when everything came to a sudden stop.
As no one could figure out what happened, the manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrived and immediately went towards the main control box. After staring silently at the circuit board for about 2 minutes, the expert then produced a little hammer and made a gentle tap about one cm from the bottom-right corner of the box.
Immediately, all the machinery sprang back to life.
The plant manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received a service bill for $5,000.
The factory manager called the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged so much for less than five minutes work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived in the manager’s intray. 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 widget factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for years spent developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WP site set up so all you had to do is publish new content and search engines, social sites like Facebook and Twitter and dozens of other online properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your site?)
While many experts often make difficult situations and problems look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring some basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed to get various functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up to get specific results
- Which options you need to configure to ensure that everything will work to plan, etc.
(Generating 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 involved. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing and configuring one or two plugins, tweaking some options and settings in your admin area or clicking a button … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your web hosting server, your website or blog, and various external sites or online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we create a simplified flowchart showing the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram of the configuration process)
Let’s take a better look at what’s involved.
Configuring Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your web server that affect how your site will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your site may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like configuring spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites and services.
External Sites And Services – Configuration
The basic concept of setting up 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 sites have been added to your traffic network, content linked back to your website is automatically posted to search, social and aggregator sites. Your business will benefit from exposure online, helping you tap into a new audience and traffic source.
Some sites and services 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 Webmasters
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential data, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account with Google Webmaster Tools, you can use your details to automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic performance, SEO, marketing activities, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details have been set up, visitor tracking information can be easily integrated with WordPress using plugins and and sent to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account and site data with Bing have been set up, your account details can be used with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained 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 build a professional online 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 at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your traffic system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social media and social bookmarking accounts set up before you can 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 attract new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts and profiles with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are many social sites you can You can post your content to lots of social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse page.
There are many different solutions that can be incorporated into your web traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
WordPress Settings
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and often overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, this section lists only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post to this section and WordPress takes care of 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 traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or 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 main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to ping all the update services you have listed in the Update Services box when new posts are 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)
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 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 Screen)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow your site to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks Screen)
Here are some of the options for configuring your site’s permalink URLs …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
If you need help setting up WP permalinks, go here: Configuring Your WordPress Permalinks
WordPress Traffic Generation Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to increase traffic
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of securing your website.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
For more information, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages easy for search engines to find, classify and index …
(Yoast SEO – WP Plugin)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to find, classify and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with their social networks can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing features to your site easily with WordPress plugins)
You can add social features to your website easily using free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social share plugins let you specify which social 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 shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which users can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress – Traffic Generation Theme Features
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 website, some themes also include built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your content is as easy as clicking a few buttons to configure your settings and enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
Additional Configuration Steps For Your WordPress Site
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online, it’s important that your site is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
We have written a detailed article about adding compliance pages to WordPress here:
Tags And Post Categories
Post tags & categories help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which helps to increase traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your website.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and post categories should be set up during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits.
Add A Site Map
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites 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 different things. Although Google will index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which plugins 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.
Don’t Forget Your WordPress 404 Error Page
When online visitors type in the wrong URL or click on an invalid link, they are presented with a 404 error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
A 404 page can be configured to funnel traffic to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error 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 several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do to automatically begin attracting more web traffic is post web content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration process can take many website professionals a long time to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is addressed in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help small business owners learn how to grow their business online and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-powered website and proven web marketing strategies.
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