Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 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 automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is add new content on a consistent basis to automatically start generating more web traffic!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic automation process. You will understand what makes an expertly configured site different than a professionally configured website. You will also discover just what type of work needs to be done to make sure that when everything is fully set up and configured, you can automatically start getting new visitors just by publishing web content on your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business getting ever more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth exploring every advantage available to get better results online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage over the competition. For businesses, having an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start as soon as their website 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 an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to describe the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence plus an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an anecdote.
A Semi-True Story …
All was working according to schedule in the widget-making factory when everything came to a sudden stop.
No one could figure out what was wrong and so the manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrived and, without uttering a word, immediately went towards the main control box. After staring at the electronic components for less than 3 minutes, the expert then produced a tiny little hammer from his pocket and made a very gentle tap about 1 inch from the left edge of the box.
Immediately, every machine inside the workshop started working again.
The plant manager was filled with joy as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager received a service bill for $5,000.
The manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged such a ludicrous fee for less than 5 minutes work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrived and was placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors consistently to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the plant stand to lose when production stopped working and no one in the business had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for investing years developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and repair a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a site fully configured so all you had to do is publish new content and search engines, social followers from Facebook and Twitter 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 attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems is often ridiculously easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than just installing a website and configuring some basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts need to be set up to achieve specific results
- Which options you need to configure to make sure things function as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite involved. It’s not as simple as installing a piece of software, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration stage is a complex process that involves your server, your website or blog, and various external sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified diagram of the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about configuring settings in your web server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web hosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic you may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
Once your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step is to set up and configure a number of external sites and services.
External Services
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all of your content gets published to one central location (your site) and from there, it gets syndicated automatically to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external services to your traffic system, content linking back to your website gets automatically published on search, social and aggregator sites. Your website receives additional exposure online, helping you tap into a new audience and source of traffic.
Some third-party web properties and online solutions will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site’s 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 site’s settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential information, SEO tools and reports about your website.
Once your account and site details with Google Search Console have been set up, this information can be used to automate traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. 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, user engagement, marketing efforts, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data are set up, your account information can be integrated with WordPress via plugins and and sent to other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account and site data with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, you can use this information to automate web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress provides users with a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors 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 sites and get new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and pages set up with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can You can post your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we discuss some of these tools in more detail during the Automation phase).
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier sources of traffic. 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 your WordPress blog 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 account.
There are various solutions that can be incorporated into your own web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a configuration 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 settings.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Global Settings
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As stated below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your site 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 main setting in this section as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to ping all the update services you have listed when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion
Although this section is mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to sites linked to from your articles, 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)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow your site to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your permalink URLs …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
For a detailed tutorial about setting up WordPress permalinks, go here: Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
WordPress – Traffic Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to increase traffic
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 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 web security.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving improving how search engines like Google and Bing find and index your web pages …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find, classify and index, it also lets you specify how to present your content in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with their own networks can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site using free or inexpensive plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Most social share plugins allow you to select which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your pages is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Additional Configuration Features For WordPress Sites
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
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 unwelcome traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do business online, you need to ensure that your website is found to comply with all legal requirements.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress site, see this article:
Categories And Post Tags
Post categories and tags help to improve your site’s search optimization, which improves traffic.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s post tags and post categories during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags you have set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools find more of your website content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When visitors searching online for your site enter the wrong URL into their web browser or click on a dead link, they will typically be greeted with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover 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 System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website or blog has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then to begin driving web traffic is publish web content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and knowledge required to perform the configuration phase of the traffic automation process typically takes some web professionals a long time to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is addressed in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To keep reading, click here:
This article is part of an article series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic organically using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven web 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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