Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic machine using WordPress.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to automatically bring more web traffic is add content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we looked at critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this article, we look at the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. We will show you why an expertly configured WordPress site is different, and just what type of work needs to be done to ensure that when all is fully configured, you will begin driving web traffic automatically when you begin to post fresh content regularly to your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business getting ever more competitive, it’s worth looking into any opportunity you can to get better results online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage over other competitors. For business owners, having an expertly configured website means having a significant competitive advantage from the word “go”.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to understand the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only is more 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 Semi-True Story …
Things were going well in the widget assembly line when all of a sudden, everything ceased working.
No one could figure out what happened and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and walked immediately towards the control box. After staring at the electronic components for 3 minutes, the expert then took out a teeny-weeny hammer from his tool box and made a very gentle tap near the left corner of the control unit.
Immediately, everything returned to normal.
The manager was grateful and relieved as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received a bill for $5,000.
The manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why they were charged such a large amount of money for less than 5 minutes work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors consistently to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the equipment stopped working and no one in the business had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for years spent acquiring the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to fix a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your web site set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although experts often make complex solutions look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than installing a website and configuring basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services need to be set up to achieve certain outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured to make sure everything will work as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving web 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 and complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing a piece of software, clicking a couple of buttons, or configuring some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase is a process that involves your web hosting server, your website, and various third-party sites and services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we were to create a simplified diagram showing the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps in more detail.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is configuring settings in your web-hosting account specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your webhosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic you can attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like configuring spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites and services.
3rd-Party Sites Configuration
The concept behind choosing external sites is that all content is published from one central location (your site) and from there, it gets syndicated automatically to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After incorporating these external sites into your configuration, content linking back to your site gets automatically syndicated to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social media accounts, even to users of the platform itself. Your content and site will be exposed to a new audience and new sources of traffic.
Some of the third-party sites and online services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings to save time 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 site’s settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly site)
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 essential data, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account with Google, you can use your details to integrate and automate web traffic 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, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up Google Analytics, traffic tracking information can be integrated with WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins used with other applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account with Bing Webmaster Tools have been set up, use this information with 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 website owners the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social media accounts set up in order to configure these as part of 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 social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site.
You should set up profiles with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. 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 lets you add an RSS feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute your content to social networks)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your account.
There are many different solutions that can be added to your traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website Or Blog
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 key areas.
WordPress Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and frequently overlooked traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Section)
As described below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have specifically configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(You can 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 your content gets seen by readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to view the rest of the content from excerpts, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as your traffic system is concerned, however, the main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to instantly notify various update services when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion Settings
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 Screen)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow your site to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your site’s permalink URLs …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, see this tutorial: Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
WordPress Plugins – Configuration
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s take a brief look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with 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 web site is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(Security Plugins stop 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
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages easily indexable …
(WordPress SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, crawl and index, it also lets you specify how to display your content in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you provide content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their website using free or inexpensive plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Most social share plugins let you specify which social 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 followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to protect content which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress – 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 the design and layout of your website, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure settings and options for improved traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Areas For Traffic
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwanted traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do business online, it’s important that your website remains compliant with all legal requirements.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
For a detailed article about the importance of having a compliant website, go here:
Post Categories & Tags
WordPress categories and tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your web pages.
(WordPress categories help search engines index your web pages, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your site’s tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits.
A Site Map Of Your Pages and Posts
A site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools discover your online content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, whereas an XML sitemap is code that only search engine bots can interpret. Although Google can index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin 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.
Your WordPress 404 Page Not Found
When visitors type in the wrong web address into their web browser or click on an invalid hyperlink, they are presented with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 Not Found error page can redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do is post fresh content regularly to drive more traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration phase of the traffic automation process can take some web developers a long time to learn.
Once you have expertly 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 article in the WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively and drive traffic sustainably with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven online marketing methods.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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