Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is add great content consistently to bring more web traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will discuss the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to drive new visitors automatically when you post new content on your site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Being able 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 ever more competitive, it’s worth exploring every opportunity you can to get better results online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage over other competitors. With an expertly configured WordPress site, your business has a significant advantage from the very beginning.
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 a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to explain the differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does it take extra labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Allow me to illustrate this point with a little story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All was moving along in the gizmo plant when things came to a sudden stop.
As no one could figure out what happened, the plant manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert walked immediately towards the main control box. After staring at the wiring diagrams for 5 minutes or so, the expert then produced a little hammer and made a single tap about 2 inches from the left side of the unit.
Immediately, every machine returned to normal.
The plant manager was relieved as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager received an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
The factory manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why they were charged so much for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived and was placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic consistently to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the business was able to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for having spent years building up the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to assess and avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WordPress web site set up so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other online properties would be immediately 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 site?)
Although experts often make complicated solutions look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than installing a website and configuring a few settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which services you need to set up and activate to achieve specific outcomes
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure in order to ensure that things will work as planned, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite involved and time-consuming. This is because it’s not as simple as installing and configuring a plugin, configuring some options and settings in your admin area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many parts such as your web hosting server, your website, and a number of external sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If the activities involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Configuring The Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is configuring settings and options in your web server that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(In 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 beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your website can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for good and unwanted traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like implementing server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After your web server settings have been checked and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites and services.
External Accounts
The purpose of adding external sites is that all of your content gets posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it radiates outwards automatically to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external sites to your setup, content with links pointing back to your website will be automatically published on search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and site will be given additional exposure to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of the third-party sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site to save time and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts before configuring your site’s settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with important data, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account and site details with Google Search Console are set up, this information can be used with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic results, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, traffic tracking data can be easily integrated with WordPress using a Google Analytics plugin and instantly sent to many other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account and site data with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, this information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your automated web traffic generation system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social media accounts 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 pages and get new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and profile pages with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social sites you can You can post your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick the ones that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we will cover some of these tools in greater detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add an RSS feed from your WordPress blog …
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 account.
There are various technologies and third-party applications you can add to your own traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
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.
WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
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 an important and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Global 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 purposely configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post to this section …
(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 your content gets seen by readers 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 text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users 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 website to get the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to instantly notify all the update services you have specified in the Update Services field 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 …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion
Although the settings in this section 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 Screen)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your permalink URLs …
(Configuring post permalinks)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using permalinks in WordPress here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Traffic Generation Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are 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. No site is completely safe from a cyberattack.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and botnets.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your site more search engine friendly …
(Yoast SEO – WP Plugin)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your website’s SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find, classify and index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social sharing buttons to your site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to select which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default 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 visitors 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 site, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your site is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Other Configuration Features For WordPress Sites
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of business online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your website is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, go here:
WordPress Categories & Tags
Tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your website.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your web pages.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your website’s tags and categories during the Website Planning Stage.
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 and results.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools find your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. HTML site maps are web pages that link to all other content on your site and provide users with a visual map of how your content is structured, whereas XML sitemaps are mostly code that only search engines can read. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When visitors searching for your site type in the wrong URL or click on links pointing to destinations on your website that no longer exist, they will typically be presented with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A 404 Not Found page)
A 404 Error Page can redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your website or blog has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do is post fresh content on a regular basis to automatically drive more web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many website professionals months to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is explained in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive tutorial series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing strategies that are easy to implement.
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