Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to automatically bring traffic is post new content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase of the blueprint. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we discuss the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. You will learn what makes an expertly configured site different, and what type of work needs to be done to make sure that when all is fully configured, you can begin to get visitors automatically when you add content to your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Also, the business landscape is becoming ever more competitive worldwide and businesses are exploring any and every opportunity they can to improve their performance and results online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can be a huge advantage over the competition. For businesses, having an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start from the moment their website is launched.
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 its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to understand the main difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only is extra work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let me illustrate this point with a story.
A Semi-True Story …
Things are going well in the widget assembly workshop when suddenly, the machines stops.
As no one can figure out what’s gone wrong, the plant manager decides to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately goes to the main control box. After staring silently at the wires and circuitry for 2 minutes, the expert then produces a tiny little hammer from his pocket and makes a single tap near the left edge of the control unit.
Immediately, everything starts working once more.
The plant manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the factory manager receives an invoice for $5,000.
Bewildered, the manager picks up the phone and dials the expert. Why had they had been charged such a ludicrous fee for less than 5 minutes work? He then 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 traffic consistently to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production stopped working and no one on the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for spending years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your website or blog fully set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be immediately 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 complicated solutions look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few settings. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which services need to be set up and activated to achieve desired results
- Which settings need to be configured to make sure things work to plan, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved. It’s not just about installing a piece of software, tweaking some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration phase is a process that involves your server, your WordPress site, and a number of third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved in more detail.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes. What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your server that affect how your site will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic you will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
Once your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step is to configure various third-party sites.
External Accounts
The concept behind adding external sites is that all of your content should be posted to one central location (your site) and from there, radiate outwards to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external services to your system, content linking back to your website will get automatically posted to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social networks, even to users of the platform itself. Your content and business will benefit from added exposure online, helping you tap into new sources of traffic.
Some of the external sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to help speed up the 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 before configuring your WordPress site:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with useful information, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site data are set up, you can use the information with traffic 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 performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add tracking information to all of your pages in WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data automatically to other online applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account, your details can be used to automate web traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers both the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to build a professional web presence.
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 this into your web traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need to set up your various social media and social bookmarking accounts in order to 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 pages and drive new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and profile pages with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select those that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(There are lots of social sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add a feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse website.
There are various solutions you can incorporate into your web traffic blueprint. Please 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 service accounts, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
By default, WordPress includes a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains an important and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Global 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 have intentionally chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services field
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is available …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section …
(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 readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site to read the rest of the content from a partial feed, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The most important setting here as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically notify various update services when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Global 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 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 Screen)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
If you need help setting up WP permalinks, refer to this tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress Traffic Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, web security is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to hackers and bots.
For more details, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(WP Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your site’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find, classify and 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 Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social sharing plugins let you specify which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which users can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your website, some themes also include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a free theme) come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Settings
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwanted traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you make money online, it’s important that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Compliant?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, go here:
WordPress Post Categories & Tags
Post tags and categories help search engines index your web pages, which improves traffic.
(Categories help search engines index your website, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s post categories and tags earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags you have set up.
HTML Site Map
A visitor site map that displays all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites discover your site’s content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although Google can index your pages just using 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 results in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Another Source Of Traffic!
When online visitors enter the wrong web address into their web browser or click on a dead hyperlink, they are greeted with a 404 error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to funnel visitors 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 plugins for WordPress 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 website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do is post great content on a regular basis to automatically begin bringing more traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different elements and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform this process can take some web professionals a long time 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 the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy to implement.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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