Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your site into an automated web traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we described 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 site, all you have to do to start driving web traffic is add fresh content regularly!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase. 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 site, and what to do if your website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we discuss the configuration stage of the traffic system. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to ensure that visitors will automatically start flowing whenever you add web content on your web site.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive worldwide and are exploring any advantage they can to improve their results online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a huge advantage over other competitors. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start from the moment their site is launched.
The Configuration Process Is What Makes All The Difference
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 take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s one way to explain the differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
Allow me to illustrate this with a joke.
Knowing Where To Tap
Everything is running smoothly in the widget assembly line when things grind to a sudden halt.
No one can figure out what is wrong and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Soon afterward, the expert arrives and, without saying a word, walks directly towards the control box. After staring silently at the schematics for 2 minutes or so, the expert then produces a little hammer and makes a single tap about 3 inches from the left corner of the unit.
Immediately, every machine in the assembly line returns once again to normal.
The floor manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager receives an invoice for $5,000.
With great anger, the manager calls the expert. Why did he charge them such a ridiculously high fee for less than 5 minutes work? He then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving web traffic to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to get paid fairly for having spent years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a web site set up so all you had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other traffic-generating online 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?)
While experts often make difficult situations and problems look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring settings for a client. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up and activated to achieve specific outcomes
- Which options you need to configure to make sure things work as envisioned, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite involved and time-consuming. This is because it’s not just about installing a solution, tweaking some options and settings in your admin area or clicking a button … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of different components such as your server, your website, and a number of third-party sites …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes. What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings in your web server that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your site may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
Once your server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step is to set up and configure a number of third-party sites or online solutions.
Configuring External Sites
The purpose of adding external sites is that all content should be posted to one central location (your site) and from there, radiate outwards to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external platforms to your network, content with links pointing back to your website will be automatically added to these platforms. Your content and business will receive exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.
Some of these third-party web properties and online services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site to speed up the process 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 WordPress site:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with useful data, tools, and reports about their website.
Once your account and site data with Google are set up, your details can be used to automate traffic 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 traffic performance, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
After setting up your up your Google Analytics account and site details has been entered, your account information can be added to WordPress using a simple plugin and automatically fed to other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account and entering site details with Bing, use this information to automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress 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 option if you are planning to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, 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 web traffic system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic 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.
Once you have set up and configured everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and profiles set up with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking 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 with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to 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 displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your page.
There are various technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress Site Configuration
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.
Global Settings – WordPress
By default, your WordPress dashboard area includes a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains an important and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – 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 have intentionally configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services box
By default, this section contains only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section …
(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 visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence traffic. For example, choosing 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 affect someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to get 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 traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically notify all the update services you have specified in the Update Services section whenever 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 …
(Global 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 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this tutorial: How To Configure Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring Settings – Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at 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, website security is something you cannot afford to ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to hackers and botnets.
For more information, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving improving the way search engines like Google and Bing find and index your web pages …
(SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing to your site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social sharing buttons to your site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social share plugins let you select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting 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 design and layout elements of your site, some themes also include options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With many themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your site is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure For Improved Traffic
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you make money online, it’s important that your site is found to comply with government laws and regulations.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
To learn more about how to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog, see this article:
Post Categories & Post Tags
WordPress categories and tags help improve traffic by improving your site’s SEO.
(Post categories help search engines better classify and index your pages, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s tags and categories should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Visitor Site Map
A visitor site map that displays all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools discover more of your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just from 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.
404 Page Not Found – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When visitors type in the wrong web address or click on a dead hyperlink, they are presented with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 Not Found error page) …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to funnel visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do is post web content consistently to automatically start generating web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many web developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is explained in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Part Three
To continue reading this article, click here:
This article is part of an tutorial series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven web marketing methods.
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