Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic generating machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is post fresh content regularly to automatically attract traffic!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase of the traffic automation process. 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 website, and what to do if your existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this section, we look at the configuration phase of the traffic blueprint. We will show you how a WordPress site should be configured to begin getting web traffic automatically simply by posting fresh content to your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business becoming so much more competitive, it’s worth exploring any advantage available to increase your own competitiveness online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge competitive advantage. With an expertly configured website, your business has an immediate 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 installed and set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to explain the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this here is an amusing little story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Things were going well in the gizmo-making workshop when everything came to a sudden stop.
As no one could figure out what went wrong, the floor manager decided to call in an expert.
The expert arrived soon afterward and, without saying a word, headed immediately towards the main control box. After staring at the board for less than 3 minutes or so, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy hammer from his shirt pocket and made a single tap near the right side of the unit.
Immediately, the plant started working once again.
The floor manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager received a request for payment of services rendered for $5,000.
The factory manager called the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a ludicrous fee for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived and was placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for spending years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a blog fully set up so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other web 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 driving traffic to your website?)
Although many experts often make complicated things look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than simply installing a website and configuring basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party accounts need to be set up and activated to achieve desired outcomes
- Which options you need to configure to ensure that things will function as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved and complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a piece of software, tweaking some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your website, and a number of third-party sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified diagram 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 hosting account for site installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your web hosting account specifically for handling 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 traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic you can attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like implementing spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up 404 error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites.
External Accounts
The basic idea of choosing external sites is that all of your content should be posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, get distributed automatically to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external services into your configuration, content with links pointing back to your website will be automatically published on search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and website will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some external web properties and online services 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, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with useful information, tools and reports about your website.
Once your Google Webmasters account and site data are set up, this information can be used to automate web 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 traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details are set up, your account information can be added to WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and automatically sent to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account and site details with Bing are set up, this information can be used to integrate and 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 grow a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your web traffic generation system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and get new traffic to your site)
You will need to set up your social accounts 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 and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site.
You should have accounts and profiles with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can You can post your content to lots of social sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we cover some of these tools in greater detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging web platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add an RSS feed from your WordPress site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse social feed.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your own web traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website Or Blog For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
The WordPress admin area contains a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As described below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of update services entered into the Update Services text box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section includes only one entry …
(Writing Settings – WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(Notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
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 in this section can have an influence traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to view the rest of the content from a partial feed, 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 checkbox is ticked or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to notify various update services whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
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 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the ways permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using WordPress permalinks here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site 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, securing your web sites is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and bots.
Go here to learn more:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help increase traffic by making your site more search engine friendly)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your site’s SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find, crawl and index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with their own friends and networks can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website using free or inexpensive plugins)
There are many free or inexpensive social sharing plugins to choose from.
Most social share plugins let you select which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring WordPress Traffic Features In Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes allow you to configure options and settings for improved traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a few buttons and enabling the feature …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Sections
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online (or plan to), it’s important that your site complies with government regulations.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, go here:
Post Tags And Post Categories
WordPress post tags and categories help search engines index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your web pages.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your site’s tags and categories during the Website Planning Stages.
When looking at ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal results.
A Site Map Of Your Pages and Posts
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications discover more of your website content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page – Don’t Forget This!
When visitors searching online for your website enter the wrong URL into their browser or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they are presented with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your site expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do is publish content consistently to automatically start generating new traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some web professionals months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven web marketing strategies.
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