Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a website into an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is publish web content consistently to automatically start driving traffic!)
In Part 2, we focused on critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we look at the configuration phase of the traffic system. The focus of this section is to help you understand what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different than a professionally configured site, and just what kind of work is required to ensure that when everything is fully set up and configured, web traffic will automatically start flowing as you start to add content on your website.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business becoming so much more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth exploring any and every opportunity you can to improve your performance and results online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage over other competitors. With an expertly configured WordPress site, you have an immediate competitive advantage from the word “go”.
Configuration Is 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 take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here’s a simple way to explain the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only is additional labor 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 joke.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All was going fine in the gizmo-making plant when things came to a sudden stop.
As no one could figure out what happened, the manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert headed immediately towards the control box. After staring at the wiring board for less than 5 minutes, the expert then produced a little hammer from his tool belt and made a gentle tap near the bottom-right side of the unit.
Immediately, everything in the factory floor returned once again to normal.
The plant manager was delighted as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager received a bill for $5,000.
The factory manager called the expert, demanding to know why the expert had charged them such an exorbitant fee for so little time delivering such minimal amount of work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors consistently to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to demand fair compensation for investing years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social media and dozens of other online properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
Although experts often make complicated solutions look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party services you need to set up and activate to achieve specific outcomes
- Which options you need to configure in order to make sure processes will run to plan, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite complicated. This is because it’s not as simple as installing a plugin, clicking a button … it’s all of this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your web hosting server, your site, and various external sites …
(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 simplistic flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved in more detail.
Your Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings and options in your web-hosting account specifically for handling web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your 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 may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like configuring spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up 404 error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these, the next step is to set up and configure various third-party sites.
External Services
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all content will get published to a central location (your site) and from there, it will syndicate automatically to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external platforms have been added to your traffic system, content with links pointing back to your site will be automatically added to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your website will be given additional exposure to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of these web properties and online platforms will need to be 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, here are just some of the accounts you will need to have set up before configuring your WordPress site:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of useful data, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account is set up, use this information to automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, traffic tracking information can be easily integrated with WordPress via a plugin used with other applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, the details can be used with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, 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 web traffic system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and get new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social media and social bookmarking accounts set up in order to integrate these with 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 sites and bring new traffic to your site.
You should set up accounts with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can syndicate your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(There are lots of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging web platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
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 account.
There are various sites and platforms you can incorporate into your traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and often overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(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 on this page can have an influence traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs summaries 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 blog 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 most important setting in this section as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly notify various update services when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion
Although discussion settings 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 display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways post permalinks 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
Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
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 website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your website is something you cannot ignore.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to hackers and bots.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website …
(SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your website’s SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your website’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing 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 GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website using free or inexpensive plugins)
You can add social sharing to your site easily using free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social share plugins allow you to select 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 shares), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress – 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, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, some themes also provide options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure options and settings for better traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your site is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Configuring Other WordPress Features
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your site complies with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, see this article:
Categories And Post Tags
WordPress post tags and categories help search engines classify and index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s SEO.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and post categories should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags that have been set up.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites find your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. HTML site maps provide visitors with a logical map of how your content is structured, while XML sitemaps are code that only search engine bots can understand. Although search engines like Google can index your site 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 Forget To Configure It!
When visitors type in the wrong web address into their browser or click on a dead hyperlink, they are presented with an error – page not found message …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do to begin attracting new traffic is add fresh content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many web professionals a long time to learn.
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 article in the WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Part 3
To continue reading about this topic, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business with a WordPress-powered website and proven web marketing strategies.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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