Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive visitors automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is add fresh content on a consistent basis to automatically start generating web traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. 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 existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration phase of the traffic system. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site so you can attract new traffic automatically when you add web content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive and are researching any and every opportunity they can to get better results online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge advantage over the competition. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website means having a significant advantage from the word “go”.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to understand the differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a little story.
A Semi-True Story …
All was humming along in the gizmo assembly workshop when all of a sudden, everything ground to a stop.
No one could figure out what happened and so the floor manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert headed out immediately to the control box. After staring at the wiring diagrams for less than 5 minutes, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy hammer and made a single tap about two cm from the right-hand side of the unit.
Immediately, everything started working again.
The manager was filled with joy as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why the expert had charged them so much for less than five minutes work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived on the manager’s desk. 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 story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the equipment stopped functioning and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for having invested years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WordPress website or blog configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
While experts often make complicated situations and problems look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than just installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install to get certain functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up and activated to get desired outcomes
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to make sure everything will function how you have envisioned, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved and complicated. It’s not as simple as installing a piece of software, clicking on a button or two … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your WP site, and various external sites …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we create a simplified flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the configuration phase)
Let’s examine what’s involved in more detail.
Configuring Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings and options in your server that affect how you will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web-hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic you will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess and 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites and/or online services.
Integration With External Web Properties
The concept behind adding external sites is that all of your content will get published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will syndicate automatically to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After adding these external services to your traffic network, content pointing back to your site will get automatically fed to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and business will be exposed to a new audience and new sources of traffic.
Some third-party sites and online solutions will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings to help speed up the configuration process and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Webmasters
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with essential data, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site details have been set up, use this information with 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 site’s performance, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your account and site data, visitor tracking information can be added to all of your web pages in WordPress using a simple Google Analytics plugin used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account with Bing, use this information to automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers users a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to grow 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 show you how to integrate this into your web traffic system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social media accounts set up in order to 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 sites and drive new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose the ones that will work well with your system and/or content syndication tools (we cover some of these tools in more detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add a feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
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 website.
There are various sites and platforms that can be added to your traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
Configuring WordPress
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
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 site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services section
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site to get the rest of the content from excerpts, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The most important setting here as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to ping various update services when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
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 sites linked to from your articles, 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)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using WordPress permalinks here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is guaranteed immunity from a cyber-attack.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to botnets and hackers.
Go here to learn more:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help increase traffic by improving your website’s ability to rank better in search engines)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines to find, classify and index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Many social sharing plugins let you select which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
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 the layout and design 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 can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
Additional Areas To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website complies with all laws and regulations.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website, go here:
WordPress Post Categories & Tags
Post categories & tags help search engines index your pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and 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 Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the tags and categories that have been set up.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
A site map that displays all of your posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover more of your site’s content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. HTML site maps provide readers with a logical map of how your content is organized, while XML sitemaps are mostly just a bunch of code that only search bots can read. Although Google can index your pages just using 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 Page – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When visitors searching online for your site enter the wrong URL or click on a link pointing to a destination on your website that no longer exists, they are presented with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up on your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do to automatically bring web traffic is publish new content on a consistent basis.
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 skills and expertise required to perform this stage of the traffic automation process can take many web developers months to learn.
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 addressed in the next article in our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part 3
To continue reading this article, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven online marketing methods.
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