Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic machine using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is publish new content consistently to automatically attract new traffic!)
In Part Two, we focused on critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing 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 will look at the configuration stage of the traffic automation process. The focus of this section is to help you understand why an expertly configured site is different from a professionally configured website. You will also understand what type of work is required to make sure that when all is set up and fully configured, you can drive new visitors automatically simply by consistently publishing web content to your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive and are exploring any and every advantage available to increase their competitiveness online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand is a huge competitive advantage. For business owners, an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the very start.
The Configuration Stage Is The Difference
There is a 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 one way to understand the main difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
To illustrate this here’s a joke.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All was going well in the widget assembly line when things suddenly ceased working.
No one could figure out what happened and so the manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
The expert arrived soon afterward and, without saying a word, headed immediately towards the control box. After staring silently at the control unit for 3 minutes or less, the expert then produced a teeny-weeny hammer and made a gentle tap near the left edge of the box.
Immediately, the whole workshop lit up and started working as before.
The manager was delighted as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager received an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
The factory manager rang back the expert, demanding to know why they were charged so much for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived and was placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving new traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for investing years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WordPress website or blog set up so all you ever had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other online properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your site?)
Although experts often make complex solutions look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to work things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is 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 you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up and activated to get desired results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to ensure that things will function to plan, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite involved. This is because it’s not as easy as installing a plugin, clicking a couple of buttons, or configuring some settings in your admin area … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of different parts such as your web server, your web site, and various third-party sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps in more detail.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes. What we are talking about, is tweaking settings in your web-hosting account specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic you will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up 404 error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After your server settings have been checked and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites.
External Services
The basic concept of setting up external sites is that all of your content should be posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it will radiate outwards to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After adding these external sites to your system, content with links pointing back to your site gets automatically fed to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and site will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some external sites will need to have accounts 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 Search Console – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with important data, tools, and reports about their website.
Once your account is set up, the information can be used to integrate and automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up Google Analytics, your account information can be easily integrated with WordPress via any of several Google Analytics plugins used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account, this information can be used to integrate and automate traffic settings and notifications in WordPress 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 option if you plan to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful 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 generation system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social media accounts set up 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 and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have accounts set up with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add an RSS feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse social feed.
There are various platforms you can add to your own web traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
WordPress Settings
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster 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 update services entered into the Update Services box
By default, this section displays only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(You can 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 on this page can influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site to read 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 ticked or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to automatically notify the update services list when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings)
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 blogs 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using permalinks here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more visitors to your site
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your 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 simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your web site.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to hackers and bots.
For more details, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web content easily indexable …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your site’s SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages 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 GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing to your website easily with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social share plugins allow you to specify which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring WordPress Traffic Generation Theme Features
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
Additional Configuration Steps For WordPress Traffic Automation
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you are making money online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article about how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog here:
Post Categories And Tags
WordPress post categories & tags help search engines index your website, which improves traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s categories and tags should be discussed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags you have set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
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 your web content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
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 visitors with a logical map of how your content is organized, whereas XML sitemaps are code that only search engine bots can interpret. Although Google can index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your WordPress 404 Error Page
When online users enter the wrong web address into their web browser or click on a hyperlink pointing to a page on your website that no longer exists, they will normally be presented with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 page) …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured into a useful source of traffic to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your website or blog expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do is add great content regularly to bring web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of skills and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some website professionals months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is covered in the next article in our WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Part 3
To continue reading this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress website and proven marketing methods that are easy to implement.
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