Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to automatically begin attracting web traffic is post content consistently!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration phase of the traffic blueprint. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site to automatically start getting new traffic when you post web content to your website.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive worldwide and are exploring every opportunity they can to improve their performance and results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a huge competitive advantage. Having an expertly configured WordPress site gives your business a significant competitive advantage from the word “go”.
The Configuration Stage Is What Makes All 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 an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to describe the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Allow me to illustrate this with a story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Things are running smoothly in the gizmo assembly factory when production suddenly stops.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
The expert arrives soon afterwards and, without saying a word, heads directly towards the main control box. After staring at the circuit board for 5 minutes, the expert then produces a teensy-weensy little hammer from his shirt pocket and makes a gentle tap about one and half inches from the bottom-right edge of the control unit.
Immediately, the machinery returns once more to normal.
The manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager receives an invoice for $5,000.
With a sense of outrage, the manager dials the expert. Why were they charged such a ludicrous 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, a bill of payment arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive traffic consistently to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the equipment stopped working and no one on the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to be compensated fairly for spending years building up the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WordPress site fully set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social media and dozens of other online properties would be automatically 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 website?)
While the solution to many challenges often seems ridiculously easy once implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than just installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed to add certain functionalities to your site.
- Which services need to be set up to get certain outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured in order to make sure things function as envisioned, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite involved. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing a plugin, clicking a couple of buttons, or tweaking some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration stage is a complex process that involves your web server, your website or blog, and various external sites and/or online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the configuration phase)
Let’s take a brief look at these steps.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is tweaking settings in your web server that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic you will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like configuring server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
After your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites.
External Sites
The idea behind setting up external sites is that all of your content gets posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it gets automatically distributed to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external platforms to your configuration, content with links pointing back to your website will get automatically published on search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and site will receive increased exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some third-party sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site 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 Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with useful information, tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account, your details can be used with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add visitor tracking code to all of your web pages in WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data instantly to other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account with Bing Webmaster Tools, this information can be used to automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers both a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social media and social bookmarking accounts in order to 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 get new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have pages set up with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your account.
There are many different solutions that can be incorporated into your own web traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure WordPress.
Configuring Your WordPress Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress – Global Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As stated 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 discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services section
By default, this section displays only one entry …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
You can 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
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 influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog 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 most important setting here as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically notify various update services whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
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 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the ways site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more visitors to your site
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site 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, you cannot ignore the importance of web security.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
For more details, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages more search engine friendly …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) 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 allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your 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 easily add social sharing features to your website with WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social sharing plugins allow you to select which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
WP Theme Features
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 layout and design aspects of your site, many themes also include built-in options for improving SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure options and settings for better traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a few buttons to enable the function …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Configuring Other Features Of WordPress For Improved Traffic Results
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online, you need to ensure that your site is compliant with government legal requirements.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
We have written a detailed article on adding legal pages to WordPress here:
Post Tags And Categories
WordPress post tags & post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your website.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s post categories and tags should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, 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 thing. Although Google can index your site just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your 404 Error Page
When online visitors type in the wrong web address into their browser or click on a hyperlink pointing to a page on your website that no longer exists, they are greeted with a 404 error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up in your server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do is add web content consistently to automatically start attracting traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some web developers a long time to acquire.
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 explained in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Part 3
To continue reading this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online with a WordPress-driven website and proven marketing strategies that are easy to implement.
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