Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive traffic automatically to your website using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do is publish new content on a consistent basis to generate more web traffic!)
In Part 2, we discussed critical setup decisions. We helped you understand 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 site was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration phase of the traffic system. We explain what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different, and what type of work is required to ensure that when everything is fully set up and configured, you can automatically attract new visitors just by adding fresh content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Also, the business landscape is becoming so much more competitive and businesses are exploring any advantage available to increase their competitiveness online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge competitive advantage. For business owners, having an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start from the moment 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 installed and set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to explain the difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured website gives you a 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, but also a special type of expertise.
To illustrate this here’s a joke.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything is humming along in the widget assembly line when all of a sudden, production grinds to a complete stop.
As no one can figure out what is wrong, the manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert heads directly towards the control box. After staring silently at the box for 2 minutes, the expert then produces a teensy-weensy little hammer and makes a very gentle tap about one cm from the left side of the box.
Immediately, the whole machine begins working once again.
The manager is filled with joy as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager receives a service bill for $5,000.
Feeling angry, the factory manager dials the expert. Why had they had been charged such a ridiculously high fee for so little time delivering a minimal amount of work? He then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors consistently to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one on 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 building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and fix a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress site set up so all you had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other online properties would be instantly 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?)
While many experts often make difficult solutions look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring some basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which services you need to set up to get certain results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure in order to ensure that processes will work as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. It’s not just about installing a plugin, configuring some settings in your admin area … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of different components such as your web server, your web site, and various third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simplified flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes. What we are talking about, is configuring settings in your server that affect how your site will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your website may attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about 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 errors, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step is to configure various external sites and online services.
Integration With External Accounts
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all content should be published to one central location (your site) and from there, syndicate automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external sites into your configuration, content linking back to your website will be automatically published on these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social networks, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your content will be given additional exposure to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some third-party sites will need to have accounts 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 Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of important information, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
Once your account has been set up, you can use the details with web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrals, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up your Google Analytics account, you can add tracking code to all of your web pages in WordPress using a simple plugin and send data automatically to various other useful applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account, this information can be used to automate traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers both the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to build 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 traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social media accounts set up before you can configure these as part of 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 attract new traffic to your site.
Set up accounts and profile pages with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can You can syndicate your content to lots of social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(There are loads of social sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
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 social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your website.
There are various solutions you can incorporate into your web traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Area)
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 purposely configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services section
By default, this section lists only one entry …
(WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 on this page can influence traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your site to read the rest of the content from a partial feed, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting here as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to automatically ping all the update services you have listed when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion
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 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the ways SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with the effects of 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, securing your website or blog is something you cannot ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
For more information, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving improving the way search engines like Google and Bing find, classify and index your web pages …
(WordPress SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also lets you specify how to present your content in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with members of their social communities can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can add social sharing buttons to your website easily with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social share plugins let you specify which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Theme Settings
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 design and layout of your site, some themes also provide built-in options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) have built-in traffic optimization features)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic – Additional Configuration Areas
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in visitor 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 cause serious damage to your business as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of business online, you need to ensure that your website complies with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website, go here:
Post Tags & Post Categories
Categories and post tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your web pages.
(Categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your web pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s post categories and tags earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags you have set up.
Add A Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications find your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although Google can index your site 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 can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Forget This!
When visitors type in the wrong web address or click on a link pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they are greeted with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 page) …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up on your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to bring traffic is publish fresh content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration process typically takes many website developers a long time 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 WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part 3
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 you learn how to grow your business using a WordPress-powered website and proven online marketing strategies.
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