Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to begin attracting new web traffic is publish great content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we focused on the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will look at the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site so you can automatically bring new visitors when you begin to post fresh content on a regular basis to your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business getting so much more competitive worldwide, it’s worth learning about any advantage available to get better results online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage over the competition. An expertly configured website gives your business a significant advantage from the very beginning.
The Difference Is In The Configuration Process
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to understand the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence with 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 extra work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Everything is humming along in the gizmo manufacturing plant when things suddenly grinds to a complete stop.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the manager decides to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert immediately walks to the control box. After staring silently at the circuit board for about 5 minutes or so, the expert then produces a tiny hammer and makes a gentle tap about 3 inches from the left edge of the unit.
Immediately, every machine in the assembly plant springs back to life.
The plant manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager receives a request of payment for services totalling $5,000.
Angry and confused, the factory manager dials the expert. Why have they had been charged such a ludicrous fee 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 notice arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for years spent acquiring the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a blog set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and search engines, social sites like Facebook and Twitter and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
While many experts often make difficult things look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than simply installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts you need to set up and activate to achieve desired results
- Which settings you need to configure in order to ensure that processes will work as planned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite involved. It’s not as simple as installing and configuring a solution, tweaking some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration phase is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your WordPress site, and various external sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a better look at these steps.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is configuring settings and options in your webhosting account that affect how your site will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web-hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your site will attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like configuring spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these, the next step is to set up and configure various third-party sites.
External Sites
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all of your content should be published from one central location (your site) and from there, radiate outwards to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external platforms into your traffic system, content linked back to your site gets automatically added to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and business will benefit from exposure online, helping you tap into a new audience and traffic source.
Some of the sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress settings 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 WordPress settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmasters lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of important information, tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site data, use your account information to automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
After setting up your account and site details, tracking information can be easily integrated with WordPress via a simple plugin used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account is set up, this information can be used to integrate and automate traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your traffic generation system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need your social media and social bookmarking 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 attract new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have set up profiles with all of the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick those that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we will review some of these tools in greater detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are lots of social sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator 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 users can follow your own RebelMouse page.
There are various sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings 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 site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
By default, your WordPress administration area includes a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(WordPress Settings – 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 or your webmaster have intentionally configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post 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 visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to view 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 here 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 your site to instantly notify various 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, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion
Although discussion settings are 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalinks
Permalinks enable WordPress to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
If you need help setting up permalinks, see this step-by-step tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress Traffic Generation Plugins – Configuration
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every type of functionality to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your web site.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and botnets.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your website’s ability to rank better in search engines)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your site’s SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also lets you specify how to present your content to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with members of their social networks can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social sharing to your website easily using free or inexpensive plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Many social plugins allow you to specify which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which users can unlock by sharing 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 the layout and design of your website, many themes also include built-in options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for improved traffic results)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of business online, you need to ensure that your website complies with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article about why it’s important to have a legally compliant website here:
WordPress Post Tags & Post Categories
Categories & post tags help search engines better classify and index your pages, which improves traffic.
(WordPress categories help to improve your site’s search optimization, which improves traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s categories and tags earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
When considering ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites find your online content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Your 404 Error Page
When visitors searching online for your website enter the wrong URL or click on links pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they will normally be presented with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A 404 Not Found page)
A 404 Error Page can redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website or blog expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do is post fresh content on a regular basis to automatically start generating more web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different components and external web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and knowledge required to perform this phase of the traffic automation process can take many website developers a long time to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is addressed in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read more, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively and drive traffic sustainably with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing strategies that are easy to implement.
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