Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your website into an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to attract traffic is add new content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we discussed critical setup decisions. 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 site, and what to do if your website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic system. We will explain what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different, and how much work needs to be done to ensure that when everything is fully configured, you will start driving web traffic automatically when you post web content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive on a global scale and are exploring any and every advantage they believe will improve their results and performance online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge competitive advantage. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website allows their business to get off to 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 website that has been professionally installed and set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here is a simple way to explain the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a joke.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All is moving along in the widget assembly workshop when all of a sudden, everything comes to a halt.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrives and, without uttering a word, immediately goes to the control box. After staring silently at the electronic components for no more than 3 minutes, the expert then takes out a teensy-weensy hammer from his shirt pocket and makes a single tap about 1 cm from the top-right side of the box.
Immediately, the assembly line returns to normal.
The manager is greatly overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager receives a service bill for $5,000.
Angrily, the factory manager rings the expert. Why had he charged them such an exorbitant 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 being able to drive visitors to their sites.
How much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one in the business had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to get paid fairly for investing years building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP site set up and configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other web 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 driving traffic to your website?)
While the solution to many problems can seem ridiculously simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to figure things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring some basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install to get certain functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up to get desired outcomes
- Which options you need to configure in order to make sure everything will work to plan, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved. It’s not as easy as installing and configuring one or two plugins, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your web hosting server, your WP site, and various external sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If all the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a brief look at what’s involved.
Configuring Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your web server that affect how your site will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your website may attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like implementing spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel 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 and/or online services.
External Web Properties & Solutions – Configuration
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all of your content should be published to one central location (your site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external sites to your configuration, content linked back to your site will be automatically added to these platforms. Your content and website will be given exposure to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your 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 before configuring your WordPress site:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with important information, SEO tools and reports about your website.
Once your Google Search Console account and site details are set up, this information can be used to automate traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up Google Analytics, account data can be integrated with WordPress using a simple plugin used with other applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account has been with Bing are set up, this information can be used with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your web traffic system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social media and social bookmarking accounts set up before you can 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 get new visitors to your site.
You should set up accounts and profile pages with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up accounts with and post your content to. 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 syndication tools.
(There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging web platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute your content to social networks)
RebelMouse is an 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 that can be added to your own traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global WordPress Settings
The WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains an important and frequently overlooked traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Section)
As described 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 specifically configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, this section displays only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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
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 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 choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website 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 in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to ping all the update services you have listed when new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Settings Menu – 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 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)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways your SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using permalinks in WordPress here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring Settings – Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that affect traffic generation
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is guaranteed immunity from being attacked.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to bots and hackers.
Go here for more details:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by making your site more search engine friendly)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your website’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and 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 Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins to choose from.
Many social plugins let you specify which 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 share plugins even allow you to protect content which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring design and layout aspects of your site, many themes also give you options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) allow you to configure options and settings for improved traffic results)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Configuring Other WordPress Sections
Last (but by no means least) in the configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwanted traffic but also for all the situations that can cause serious damage to your business when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you do business online, it’s important that your site is found to comply with all government legal requirements.
(Does Your Site Comply With The Law?)
To learn more about how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website, go here:
WordPress Post Categories And Tags
Categories and post tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your web pages.
(WordPress categories help search engines index your website, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s post tags and post categories should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stages.
When configuring your website or blog to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and categories that have been set up.
Visitor Site Map
A visitor site map that displays all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications find more of your web 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 can index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When visitors enter the wrong web address into their browser or click on a link pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they will normally be greeted with a 404 error page …
(A 404 Not Found page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured into a useful source of traffic to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your web server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do is add great content consistently to automatically begin attracting more web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many web developers months 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 covered in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Part 3
To keep reading, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping site owners learn how to grow their business and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-powered website and proven online marketing strategies.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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