Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive visitors automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do is post fresh content consistently to automatically drive traffic!)
In Part 2, we discussed 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 site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this section, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic system. We 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 can automatically start getting new traffic whenever you post content to your site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive and are looking for any advantage available to improve their performance online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage over other competitors. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website means having a significant advantage from the very start.
The Configuration Process Is What Makes The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here is a simple way to understand the main difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only is more work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing little story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Things were humming along in the widget plant when everything ground to a sudden stop.
No one could figure out what went wrong and so the floor manager decided to call in an expert.
The expert arrived soon afterwards and headed immediately towards the main control box. After staring silently at the wiring board for no more than 5 minutes, the expert then produced a tiny hammer from his utility belt and made a gentle tap near the left-hand corner of the box.
Immediately, everything sprang back to life.
The plant manager was greatly relieved as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received a request of payment for services for the amount of $5,000.
The factory manager rang back the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay such an exorbitant fee for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving visitors to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one in the business had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for spending years developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress website set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other traffic-generating 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 website?)
While the solution to many problems often seems ridiculously easy once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to work things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up to get desired outcomes
- Which options need to be configured to ensure that things work as planned, etc.
(Driving new 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 complicated. It’s not just about installing a solution, clicking a button, or tweaking some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of various different parts including your web hosting server, your website, and a number of third-party sites or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these areas in more detail.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes. What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your website can attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like implementing spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites and services.
External Services
The idea behind setting up external sites is that all content gets published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it gets automatically distributed to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external platforms have been added to your setup, content with links pointing back to your website will get automatically syndicated to these platforms. Your content and site will benefit from added exposure online, helping you tap into a whole new audience and source of traffic.
Some of the external web properties and online solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings to speed up the configuration process and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, here are just some of the accounts you will need to have set up before configuring your WordPress settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters)
Google Search Console lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of important data, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site details, use the account information to automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details are set up, your account information can be added to all of your pages in WordPress via a Google Analytics plugin and automatically sent to many other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account and site details are set up, use this information with web traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media accounts 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 accounts and drive new visitors to your site.
Set up accounts and profiles with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can You can post your content to lots of social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools (we will cover some of these tools in more detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, 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 site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your social feed.
There are various platforms you can incorporate into your web traffic system. Please feel free to 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 server settings and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress Configuration
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 key areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As described in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have intentionally configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services field
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section contains only one entry …
(WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(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 on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to get the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting in this section as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to instantly notify all the update services you have listed in the Update Services field when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion
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 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the options for configuring your site’s permalinks …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
If you need help setting up WordPress permalinks, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress Traffic Generation Plugin Settings – Configuration
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No website is completely immune from being attacked by hackers.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and bots.
More info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your site more search engine friendly …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO Plugin)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines 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 your visitors to share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website using WordPress plugins.
Many social share plugins let you choose which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which users can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring WordPress Traffic Generation Theme Features
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring design and layout elements of your site, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing features to your site is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to enable the function …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features)
Additional Configuration Areas For WordPress Traffic Automation
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you are making money online (or plan to), it’s important that your website remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article on how to quickly add legal pages to your website here:
Tags And Categories
Post tags and post categories help search engines better classify and index your pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your web pages.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post categories and tags should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Stage.
When considering ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories that have been set up.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
A visitor site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover more of your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Only search engine bots can read XML sitemaps. Although Google will index your site just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Don’t Forget Your 404 Page
When online visitors type in the wrong web address or click on hyperlinks pointing to destinations on your website that no longer exist, they will normally be presented with a 404 Not Found error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to automatically attract new web traffic is publish new content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform this process typically takes some website professionals a long time to acquire.
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 the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint 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 tutorials designed to help site owners learn how to grow their business online and drive traffic sustainably using a WordPress website and proven web marketing strategies.
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