Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive visitors automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS platform.
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 web site, all you have to do is add great content regularly to generate more web traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at 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 website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that web traffic will automatically start flowing when you begin to post web content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business becoming increasingly more competitive worldwide, it’s worth exploring any advantage available to get better results online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous competitive advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start as soon as their website is launched.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to understand the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let me illustrate this with an amusing anecdote.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All is going just fine in the gizmo-making plant when things come to a sudden stop.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert goes immediately to the control box. After staring silently at the circuit board for less than 3 minutes or so, the expert then takes out a tiny little hammer and makes a single tap near the bottom-left edge of the unit.
Immediately, every machine inside the assembly plant returns to normal.
The manager is delighted as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Furious, the manager picks up the phone and dials the expert. Demanding to know why they have been charged such a large amount of money for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the factory stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for investing years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WP site configured so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social media and dozens of other online properties would be instantly 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?)
While many experts often make difficult situations and problems look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to work things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get certain functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party accounts need to be set up and activated to get desired outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure in order to ensure that things work as planned, 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 so technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. This is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a plugin, tweaking some settings in your admin area or clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration phase is a process that involves your server, your website, and a number of third-party sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for installation purposes. What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings and options in your web server that affect how your site will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your site will 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 good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like integrating spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites.
External Accounts
The concept behind choosing external sites is that all of your content gets published to one central location (your site) and from there, it radiates outwards automatically to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external services to your configuration, content linking back to your site gets automatically syndicated to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your site will benefit from increased exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the web properties and online platforms will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to help 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 Search Console
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with important information, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account with Google, this information can be used with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data are set up, you can add traffic monitoring code to WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and send data instantly to many other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account is set up, use your details with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers both a self-hosted and a hosted 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 tools, 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 generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social accounts in order to configure these as part of 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 sites and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have accounts and profiles set up with all of the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are lots 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 syndication tools.
(You can post your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add a feed from your WordPress site …
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 own RebelMouse page.
There are many different platforms you can incorporate into your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
Configuring WordPress
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 points.
Global WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress admin area includes a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Screen)
As stated 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 specifically configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Writing Settings – WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(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
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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 visitors 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 displays in RSS readers 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 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.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically ping all the update services you have specified in the Update Services area whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion Settings
Although this section is mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to blogs 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)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways your permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have created a detailed tutorial about using permalinks in WordPress here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is safe from being targeted.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages more indexable …
(WP Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to 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.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with members of their social networks can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site using WordPress plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins to choose from.
Most social share plugins allow you to select which social 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 followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring layout and design elements of your site, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a free theme) allow you to configure settings for better traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your content is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other Features Of WordPress For Improved Traffic Results
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both 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 engage in any form of business online, it’s important that your website remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Legally Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
WordPress Categories & Tags
Post tags and post categories help search engines classify and index your website, which helps to increase traffic.
(WordPress categories help search engines index your pages, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s categories and tags should be reviewed and set up during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal results.
A Site Map Of Your Pages and Posts
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 find 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 different things. HTML site maps provide users with a logical map of how your content is structured, while XML sitemaps are mostly code that only search engines can read. Although Google can index your site just from 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 can result in increased traffic.
Don’t Forget Your WordPress 404 Page
When online visitors enter the wrong URL or click on a dead hyperlink, they are greeted with an error page (known as a 404 error page) …
(A 404 Not Found page)
A 404 page can redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do is post new content regularly to automatically begin bringing more web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and expertise required to perform the configuration process typically takes many website developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as can be automated. This step is covered in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help website owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
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