Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new traffic automatically to your website using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to automatically start generating more web traffic is publish new content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase of the automation process. 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 existing website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration phase of the traffic system. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to automatically drive new traffic simply by regularly adding web content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business becoming ever more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth looking into any opportunity you can to get better results online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge advantage. An expertly configured website gives you a flying start from the moment your site is launched.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a 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’s one way to describe the main difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with an automated online business marketing system!
(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 system into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All is moving along in the widget factory when all of a sudden, all machines grinds to a halt.
As no one can figure out what went wrong, the manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert goes immediately to the control box. After staring silently at the schematics for no more than 2 minutes, the expert then takes out a tiny hammer and makes a very gentle tap near the right side of the control unit.
Immediately, everything returns to normal.
The plant manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a service bill for $5,000.
Puzzled and confused, the factory manager rings the expert. Demanding to know why they have been charged such a large amount of money for less than 5 minutes work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving visitors to their sites.
How much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the equipment stopped working and no one on the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to be compensated fairly for having invested years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to quickly fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a web site set up and configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other online properties would be instantly 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 complicated things look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which third-party accounts you need to set up to get desired results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured to make sure everything works to plan, etc.
(Generating web 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 and time-consuming. It’s not as simple as installing a solution, clicking a button … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your site, and various third-party sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these steps.
Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking 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 traffic your business will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like integrating server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step is to set up and configure various external sites.
Integration With External Solutions
The basic concept of adding external sites is that all of your content will get posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will be automatically distributed to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external platforms have been added to your setup, content linked back to your website is automatically syndicated to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and business will be exposed to a new audience and new sources of traffic.
Some external web properties and online solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to help speed up the configuration 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 site:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters)
Google Search Console lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with essential data, tools, and reports about their website.
Once your Google Search Console account and site data have been set up, you can use the information to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings and notifications 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, social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, you can add traffic monitoring code to WordPress via a plugin and feed data automatically to many other online applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account is set up, you can use this information to automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) 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 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 traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need your social media accounts set up in order to 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 and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have set up profiles with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can You can post your content to many social bookmarking sites. 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 syndication tools.
(There are lots of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier 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 site that allows you to add a feed from your WordPress site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse social feed.
There are many different sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your own traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
Configuring WordPress
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 of the important points.
Global Settings
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Section)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have intentionally chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is available …
(Update Services)
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 readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your site 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 in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to instantly ping the list of update services whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Settings Menu – 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 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 Section)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the ways site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
To learn more about setting up WP permalinks, go here: Improve Your WordPress SEO With SEO-Friendly URLs
WordPress – Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality to your website, including plugins with features that help to 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 site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No web site is guaranteed immunity from a cyberattack.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bots and hackers.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your site more search engine friendly …
(WordPress Plugins For SEO – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your website’s SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines to index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing features to your site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to choose which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content 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 aspects of your website, some themes also provide built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a free theme) can be configured for improved traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons and enabling the function …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic Automation – Other Areas To Consider
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwanted traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your site stays compliant with government legal requirements.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?)
We have written a detailed article on how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog here:
Post Tags And Post Categories
Tags and categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your pages.
(Categories help to improve your site’s SEO, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your site’s categories and tags earlier on, during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Visitor Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover more of your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. HTML site maps are web pages that provide users with a logical map of how your content is structured, while XML sitemaps are mostly just a bunch of code that only search engines can interpret. Although Google will index your site just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When visitors searching online for your website enter the wrong web address into their browser or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they will typically be presented with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 Not Found error page) …
(A 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do to begin attracting more web traffic is publish web content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and knowledge required to perform the configuration stage of the traffic automation process can take many website developers months to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
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