Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new visitors automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 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 automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to automatically bring more web traffic is add content on a consistent basis!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration stage of the traffic system. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site to ensure that web traffic will automatically start flowing just by regularly adding new content on your web site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With competition making business survival progressively tougher businesses are exploring any advantage they believe will help them increase their competitiveness online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage. Having an expertly configured WordPress site gives your business an immediate competitive advantage from the very beginning.
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 installed and set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to explain the key difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
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.
Let’s illustrate this with a joke.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Things are going well in the gizmo-making workshop when everything grinds to a sudden halt.
As no one can figure out what’s happened, the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
The expert arrives within the hour and, without saying a word, immediately goes to the control box. After staring silently at the wiring diagrams for no more than 2 minutes, the expert then takes out a tiny little hammer from his pocket and makes a single tap near the left side of the box.
Immediately, everything returns to normal.
The plant manager is filled with joy as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager receives a bill for $5,000.
Bewildered, the factory manager rings the expert. Demanding to know why they were expected to pay such an exorbitant fee for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives and is placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic consistently to their sites.
How much money did the factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the business had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for having spent years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately assess and repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP blog set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networks and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be immediately 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 website?)
Although many experts often make complicated things look easy, 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 a few basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party accounts you need to set up and activate to get specific results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to make sure everything will work as planned, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. It’s not as easy as installing and configuring a solution, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web server, your site, and a number of 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 like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the configuration process)
Let’s examine what’s involved in more detail.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes. What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings and options in your web server that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your site can attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like integrating server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites and/or online services.
Integration With External Services
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all of your content should be published from one central location (your site) and from there, get automatically distributed to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external sites have been added to your system, content linking back to your website gets automatically added to search, social and aggregator sites. Your business will then be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of the web properties and online platforms will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings to help 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 – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Search Console lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of useful data, tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account, this information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic 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 results, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up your Google Analytics account, traffic monitoring information can be easily integrated with WordPress via a simple Google Analytics plugin used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account with Bing Webmaster Tools have been set up, you can use your information with traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful 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 automated web traffic generation system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social media accounts set up 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 pages and attract new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts and profile pages with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, 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 setup and/or content sharing tools.
(You can post your content to loads of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own RebelMouse page.
There are many different platforms you can incorporate into your own traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a configuration 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 site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website Or Blog
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(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 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 ping the update services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section lists only one entry …
(WordPress Update Services)
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 Settings
This section affects how your content gets seen by readers 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 text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your site 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 in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically ping the list of update services 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion
Although this section is 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 Screen)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
Here are some of the options for configuring your post permalinks …
(Configuring post permalinks)
For a detailed tutorial about setting up WP permalinks, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring WordPress Traffic Generation Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your sites is something you simply cannot ignore.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to bots and hackers.
To learn more, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress Plugin)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your site’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find, crawl and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing to your site easily with free or inexpensive plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to specify which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, 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 liking your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, some themes also include options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a free theme) allow you to configure options and settings for improved traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic Automation – Other Aspects To Consider
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do any type of business online, it’s important that your website stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done.
(Is Your Site Legally Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article on adding compliance pages to WordPress here:
Categories & Post Tags
WordPress post tags and categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.
(Post categories help to improve your site’s search optimization, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s tags and categories should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stages.
When looking at ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags that have been set up.
Visitor Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications find more of your online content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, whereas an XML sitemap contains code that only search bots can read. Although Google will index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Page – Don’t Forget This!
When visitors type in the wrong URL or click on an invalid hyperlink, they are greeted with a 404 Not Found page …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your web server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your website or blog expertly configured and fully set up, all you then need to do to start generating traffic is publish great content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration phase of the traffic automation process can take many web professionals a long time to acquire.
Once you have 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 section of our series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively and drive traffic organically with a WordPress website or blog and proven web marketing strategies.
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