Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new visitors automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do is add great content on a consistent basis to drive traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of this process. We explained the best way to get started 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 site was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site to automatically start driving new traffic when you start to post web content on your web site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With business becoming so much more competitive, it’s worth learning about every advantage that can help you get better results online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage over other competitors. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start from the moment their site is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by a web-building expert 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 professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
Allow me to illustrate this point with an anecdote.
A Semi-True Story …
All was running smoothly in the widget-making manufacturing plant when all machinery suddenly stopped.
As no one could figure out what was wrong, the manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrived and, without saying a word, walked immediately towards the control box. After staring silently at the wires and circuitry for what seemed like about 3 minutes or less, the expert then took out a teeny-weeny hammer and made a single tap near the right side of the box.
Immediately, everything began working once more.
The manager was filled with joy as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager received a bill for $5,000.
The manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why they were being charged so much 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 on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive new traffic to their sites.
How much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one in the business was able to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for having invested years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a website configured so all you had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other web properties would be immediately 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 many experts often make complex situations and problems look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party services you need to set up and activate to get certain outcomes
- Which options you need to configure in order to make sure things will work as planned, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. This is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring one or two plugins, clicking a couple of buttons, or tweaking some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and so much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of many different parts including your web server, your site, and various external sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplified diagram of the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved in more detail.
Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for site installation purposes. What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings and options in your web server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web-hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your website can attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like implementing server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess and 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step is to set up and configure various external sites.
External Accounts
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all content should be published from a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, radiate outwards to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external services to your network, content linked back to your website will be automatically fed to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and site will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some external sites and solutions will need to be set up before configuring your 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:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with useful information, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site data with Google are set up, use this information with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add visitor tracking code to all of your pages in WordPress using a plugin and feed data automatically to other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account, you can use this information with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. 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 version if you plan to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your web traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your social accounts before you can 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 and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site.
You should have profiles with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(There are many social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add a feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an 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 that can be added to your own 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.
Once you have configured your web server and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress Site 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 of the important areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
The WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As described below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section displays only one entry …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(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 web 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 blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your site to read 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 your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Generally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to instantly ping various update services whenever a new post is 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 …
(Global 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 blogs 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings Section)
Here are some of the ways post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
WordPress 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 website is safe from cyber attacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web content easily indexable …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it also lets you specify how to display your content to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with their own friends and networks can help boost traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing features to your site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to specify which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Themes
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 aspects of your site, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure settings for improved traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your site is as easy as clicking a few buttons and enabling the function …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic Automation – Additional Configuration
Last (but by no means least) in the WordPress traffic blueprint configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you make money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site remains compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices.
(Is Your Site Legally Compliant?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
Tags And Categories
Post categories & tags help improve traffic by improving your site’s SEO.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your web pages.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your website’s post tags and categories during the Website Planning Phase.
When configuring your web site to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags that have been set up.
Add A Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools find more of your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although search engines like Google will index your site just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page – Don’t Forget This!
When online visitors enter the wrong URL into their web browser or click on hyperlinks pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they will typically be greeted with a 404 Not Found page …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your web server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your website has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do is publish great content regularly to drive more traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The skills and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many web developers a long time to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is covered in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Part Three
To continue reading this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping website owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress website and proven online marketing methods.
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