Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a site into an automated traffic machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this article series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is post great content on a regular basis to bring web traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to start 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 website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured in order to ensure that visitors will automatically start flowing just by regularly publishing content on your website.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by website owners as their greatest challenge online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive worldwide and are researching any advantage they can to increase their competitiveness online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can be a huge advantage over the competition. With an expertly configured website, your business has a flying start as soon as your website is launched.
The Configuration Process Is What Makes 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 take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here’s a simple way to explain the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence plus an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only is extra labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
To illustrate this point here’s a story.
A Semi-True Story …
Things were humming along in the gizmo-making factory when all of a sudden, everything came to a halt.
No one could figure out what is wrong and so the manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrived and immediately headed to the main control box. After staring silently at the wiring diagrams for no more than 3 minutes or so, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy hammer and made a gentle tap about one inch from the left edge of the control unit.
Immediately, the machinery returned to normal.
The 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 an invoice for the sum of $5,000.
The manager rang back the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged such a ludicrous fee for so little time delivering a minimal amount of work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor was able to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to ask to be compensated fairly for having spent years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your web site fully set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networks and dozens of other traffic-generating online 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 attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems is often quite easy once implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up to get specific results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured to ensure that everything functions as envisioned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved. This is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a piece of software, clicking a button, or tweaking some settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many different components such as your server, your web site, and various external sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a brief look at these areas.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for site installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about configuring settings in your web-hosting account that affect how your site will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your webhosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your site will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites.
External Services
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all of your content will get posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it will syndicate automatically to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external services into your system, content linking back to your website will be automatically fed to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social networks, even to users of the platform itself. Your content will then receive increased exposure online, helping you tap into new sources of traffic.
Some of these external sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site to 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 Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of useful information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account, use your information to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, visitor tracking data can be easily integrated with WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and instantly fed to various other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account and entering site details, use your details with web traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to build a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your traffic system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and get new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social media and social bookmarking accounts set up 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 accounts and drive new traffic to your site.
You should have profiles set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose the ones that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(There are lots of social sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own RebelMouse account.
There are various technologies and third-party applications you can incorporate into your web traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
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 key areas.
Global Settings
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to configure 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 results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Section)
As stated 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 settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section displays only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified 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 Settings
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 content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to read the rest of the content from summaries, 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 here is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to notify various update services when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
If you need help setting up WordPress permalinks, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Setting Up Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Traffic Generation Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s take a brief look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is safe from cyberattacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help increase traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your website’s SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website with free or inexpensive plugins)
You can add social features to your site easily with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social share plugins let you choose which 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 followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which users can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress – Traffic Features In Themes
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 design and layout aspects of your website, many themes also give you built-in options for improving SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With many themes, adding social sharing buttons to your website is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic – Additional Configuration Areas
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad 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 (or plan to), you need to make sure that your website is found to comply with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
To learn more about the importance of having a legally compliant website, see this article:
Post Categories And Post Tags
Post categories and tags help to improve your site’s search optimization, which improves traffic.
(Categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and post categories should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits.
HTML Site Map
A site map that displays all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites find your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Only search engine bots can interpret an XML sitemap. Although Google can index your site just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your Site’s 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching online for your website enter the wrong web address or click on an invalid hyperlink, they are presented with an error page …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
A 404 Error Page can redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your web server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then to automatically begin attracting traffic is add web content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and external web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some website professionals a long time to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Blueprint 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 an tutorial series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress-powered website and proven online marketing methods.
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