Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
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 site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to automatically begin attracting more traffic is publish fresh content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase of this process. 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 site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration phase of this process. We will help you understand why an expertly configured WordPress site is different than a professionally configured one. You will also learn what kind of work is required to make sure that when all is fully set up and configured, you can automatically bring traffic just by consistently adding content on your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business getting so much more competitive worldwide, it’s worth looking into any and every opportunity you can to increase your own competitiveness online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage over other competitors. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start from the moment their website is launched.
The Configuration Phase Is What Makes The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to explain the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let me illustrate this point with a story.
A Semi-True Story …
All is going according to schedule in the gizmo-making workshop when all of a sudden, everything stops working.
No one can figure out what is wrong and so the manager decides to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert walks immediately towards the control box. After staring at the electronic components for 2 minutes or less, the expert then takes out a tiny little hammer and makes a single tap near the right side of the box.
Immediately, the machinery springs back to life.
The floor manager is delighted as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Bewildered and angry, the manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why they have been charged such a large amount of money for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the factory stand to lose when production stopped working and no one in the business had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to get paid fairly for years spent building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to immediately avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress blog 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 automatically notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
While many experts often make complex situations and problems 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 a few basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up to get specific outcomes
- Which options you need to configure to make sure processes will work to plan, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically challenging, but it’s quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing and configuring a solution, configuring some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many different components such as your web server, your site, and various external sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we create a simple diagram of the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these areas.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings and options in your web server that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic you will attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like configuring spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up 404 error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
Once your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites.
External Sites
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all content should be published from a central location (your site) and from there, syndicate automatically to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external platforms have been added to your configuration, content linking back to your site is automatically added to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content receives additional exposure online, helping your business tap into a new audience and source of traffic.
Some sites and services will need to have accounts 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:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with essential data, SEO tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account with Google, the information can be used to automate traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details have been set up, traffic monitoring code can be added to WordPress using a simple plugin used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account and site data with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, your information can be used with web traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers users the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social 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 accounts and drive new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts and profile pages with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools (we will look at some of these tools in more detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are paid services.
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 RebelMouse page.
There are many different platforms that can be added to your web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website For Traffic
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 of the important areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and frequently overlooked traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As stated in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, 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, this section includes only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
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 Settings
This section affects how visitors will see your content 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 shows up in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to view the rest of the content from excerpts, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as your traffic system is concerned, however, the main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to instantly ping various update services whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
Although the settings in this section 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your permalinks …
(Configuring post permalinks)
If you need help setting up permalinks, see this step-by-step tutorial: Changing WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling 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 simply cannot ignore.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets.
Go here for more info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by improving your site’s ability to rank better in search engines)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your website’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with others online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social features to your site easily with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website using WordPress plugins.
Many social share plugins let you choose which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress Traffic Features In Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring layout and design aspects of your site, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing features to your content is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic – Other Important Sections To Configure
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes 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 bad and good 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 do any type of business online, you need to ensure that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
For a detailed article about why it’s important to have a compliant website, go here:
Tags And Categories
WordPress post tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your website.
(WordPress categories help to improve your site’s SEO, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and post categories should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post categories and tags have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits.
Add A Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications find your web content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although search engines like Google can index your pages 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.
Your 404 Page
When online users type in the wrong URL or click on hyperlinks pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they are greeted with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 page) …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error 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 WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do is publish great content on a regular basis to automatically drive web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some website professionals a long time 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 our WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Part Three
To keep reading, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help site owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively using a WordPress website and proven web marketing strategies.
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