Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your website into an automated traffic machine 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 site is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to automatically begin attracting more traffic is add new content on a consistent basis!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase of the blueprint. 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 existing site was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this section, we look at the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. We will show you how a WordPress site should be configured in order to ensure that traffic will automatically start flowing when you start to publish fresh content on your website.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Also, the business landscape is becoming increasingly more competitive worldwide and businesses are exploring any and every opportunity they can to increase their competitiveness online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage over other competitors. An expertly configured website gives your business an immediate advantage from the very beginning.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to describe the differences:
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 with a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this point here is a story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Things were humming along in the gizmo factory when all of a sudden, everything ground to a halt.
As no one could figure out what happened, the manager decided to call in an expert.
The expert arrived shortly afterwards and, without uttering a word, immediately went towards the control box. After staring at the circuit board for about 3 minutes or so, the expert then produced a little hammer and made a gentle tap about one cm from the right-hand edge of the control unit.
Immediately, the whole workshop lit up and sprang back to life.
The plant manager was grateful and relieved 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 $5,000.
The factory manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why the expert had charged them such an exorbitant fee for less than five minutes work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived and was placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one on the business was able to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to be compensated fairly for having invested years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a web site fully configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and search engines, social followers from Facebook and LinkedIn and dozens of other web 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 attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although many experts often make difficult things look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to get various functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party accounts you need to set up and activate to get certain results
- Which settings need to be configured in order to ensure that things work to plan, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite involved. It’s not just about installing a solution, configuring some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and so much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of various different components such as your web server, your site, and a number of third-party sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we create a simple diagram of the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a brief look at these steps.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about configuring settings and options in your web hosting account specifically for handling web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web-hosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic you will attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like integrating spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting 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 external sites.
External Sites
The idea behind choosing external sites is that all content will be posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external sites have been added to your configuration, content linked back to your website is automatically fed to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and site will be given exposure to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some sites and online solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your 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 before configuring your settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of useful information, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your Google Webmasters account and entering site details, your details can be used to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. 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 activities, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details have been set up, traffic monitoring code can be added to WordPress using a plugin used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account has been set up, use the details to integrate and automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers website owners the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to grow a professional online presence.
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 automated traffic generation system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your various social media and social bookmarking accounts before you can 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 accounts and get new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have accounts set up with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up accounts with and syndicate your content to. 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).
(You can syndicate your content to loads of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your website.
There are various platforms that can be added to your web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
Configuring WordPress 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
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As stated below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have intentionally chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services box
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section lists only one entry …
(Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section and WordPress will do the rest …
(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
This section affects how your content gets seen by readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to view 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 traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to instantly ping your update services list when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
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 sites 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 Section)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks enable WordPress to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the ways permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have created a detailed tutorial about using permalinks in WordPress here: Changing Your WordPress Permalinks
WordPress – Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality to your site, including many plugins that 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 dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is completely immune from being attacked by hackers.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
For more details, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages easily indexable …
(WP Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with their social networks can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing to your site using free or inexpensive plugins)
There are many free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Most social share plugins let you choose which 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 likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which users can unlock by sharing your page.
Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, many themes also provide options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic – Additional Configuration
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and unwanted 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 are making money online (or plan to), it’s important that your website complies with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With The Law?)
We have written a detailed article about the importance of having a legally compliant website here:
WordPress Post Tags & Post Categories
Post tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your pages.
(Categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s post tags and post categories 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 site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications discover more of your site’s content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although Google will index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When visitors searching for your site enter the wrong web address or click on a link pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they are presented with a 404 page …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your site expertly configured and fully set up, all you then need to do is add web content regularly to bring web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration process can take many website professionals a long time to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is addressed in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Part Three
To keep reading, 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 cost-effectively using a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy and quick to implement.
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