Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is add great content consistently to drive traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your website was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site so you can get visitors automatically just by adding content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Also, the business landscape is becoming increasingly more competitive on a global scale and businesses are researching every advantage they can that can help you increase their competitiveness online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage over other competitors. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website allows their business to get off to a flying start as soon as their site is launched.
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 web-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s a simple way to understand the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a little story.
Knowing Where To Tap
All is running smoothly in the gizmo workshop when things suddenly cease working.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the manager decides to call in an expert.
Soon afterward, the expert arrives and, without uttering a word, heads straight towards the control box. After staring silently at the wires and circuitry for no more than 3 minutes, the expert then takes out a teeny-weeny hammer from his utility belt and makes a very gentle tap near the left-hand edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything returns once again to normal.
The floor manager is delighted as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager receives a service bill for $5,000.
Feeling furious, the factory manager rings the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them such an exorbitant fee for less than five minutes work, he then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, 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 plant stand to lose when the machines stopped working and no one on the factory floor had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to ask to be compensated fairly for investing years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a site configured so all you had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems often seems quite easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts you need to set up and activate to get specific results
- Which settings need to be configured in order to ensure that everything functions to plan, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. This is because it’s not as easy as installing one or two plugins, configuring some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your web server, your web site, and a number of third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If the activities involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about configuring settings and options in your web-hosting account that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your business will attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like integrating server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, 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 external sites and online services.
Integration With External Accounts
The basic idea of choosing external sites is that all content is posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it radiates outwards automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you incorporate these external platforms into your traffic system, content linked back to your website is automatically posted to search, social and aggregator sites. Your website will then receive additional exposure online, helping your business tap into a new audience and traffic source.
Some third-party sites will need to be set up before configuring your site’s settings to 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:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmasters lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with important information, tools, and reports about their website.
Once your account has been with Google have been set up, you can use this information with web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
After setting up your account and site data, traffic monitoring data can be integrated with WordPress using a simple plugin used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account and entering site data, you can use your account information to integrate and automate traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers users a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, 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 this into your web traffic generation system in the next installment 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 social media accounts in order to integrate these with 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 and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site.
You should set up profiles with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots 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 well with your system and/or content sharing tools (we cover some of these tools in more detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your website.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications you can incorporate into your own traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website Or Blog
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
By default, your WordPress dashboard area includes a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As described in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section lists only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list of update services to this section …
(You can 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
***
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 web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your site to read the rest of the content from excerpts, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting in this section as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to instantly ping all the update services you have listed when new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, do not check this box …
(Settings Menu – 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 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)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the ways permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
If you need help setting up WordPress permalinks, refer to this tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add almost every type of functionality to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at 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, you cannot ignore the importance of web security.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to hackers and bots.
Go here to learn more:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with others online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are many free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Most social share plugins allow you to 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 shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which users can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress Theme Features
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that 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, some themes also include built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic Automation – Additional Configuration Steps
Last (but by no means least) in the configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do business online, it’s important that your site remains compliant with government regulations.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help understanding the importance of having a legally compliant website, go here:
Tags & Categories
Post tags and post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your pages.
(Categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your website.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s tags and categories should be set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
When considering ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your pages and posts 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!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Only search engine bots can interpret XML sitemaps. Although search engines like Google can 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 can result in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When online visitors type in the wrong URL or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they will normally be greeted 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 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 several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do to generate more traffic is post new content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and knowledge involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some website professionals months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as can be automated. This step is addressed in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Part Three
To keep reading, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive tutorial series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively with a WordPress website or blog and proven online marketing methods.
Subscribe To WPCompendium.org And Get Notified Of New Tutorials!
***
"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
***