Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress 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 explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to automatically bring more web traffic is publish web content consistently!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase. We helped you understand 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 existing website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration phase of the traffic system. We will help you understand why an expertly configured site is different than a professionally configured website, and how much work is required to ensure that when everything is set up and fully configured, web traffic will automatically start flowing just by consistently publishing fresh content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business getting so much more competitive worldwide, it’s worth looking into any opportunity you can to get better results online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage over the competition. With an expertly configured WordPress site, your business has an immediate competitive advantage from the very start.
The Configuration Process Is What Makes All The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to describe the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is extra work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
To illustrate this here’s an anecdote.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Things were humming along in the widget assembly line when suddenly, everything ceased working.
No one could figure out what was wrong and so the manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and immediately went to the control box. After staring at the board for less than 3 minutes, the expert then produced a tiny hammer and made a single tap near the top-right side of the control unit.
Immediately, everything started working as before.
The manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager received an invoice for $5,000.
The manager called the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a ridiculously high fee for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work and promptly 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 #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for spending years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to immediately avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WordPress website set up so all you ever had to do is publish new content and search engines, social sites and dozens of other traffic-generating 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 the solution to many challenges often seems ridiculously simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
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 like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party services you need to set up and activate to get desired outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured in order to ensure that things function to plan, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite complicated. It’s not as easy as installing and configuring one or two plugins, tweaking some settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and so much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of many parts such as your server, your website or blog, and various external sites and/or online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps in more detail.
Configuring Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your server that affect how your website will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your business may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites and services.
Configuring External Services
The idea behind setting up external sites is that all of your content should be published from a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, be distributed automatically to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After incorporating these external platforms into your configuration, content with links pointing back to your site will get automatically posted to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social networks, even to users of the platform itself. Your content and site benefits from exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of these third-party web properties and online solutions will need to be set up before configuring your site to help speed up the process 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 site’s settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with useful information, tools, and reports about their website.
Once your Google Webmaster Tools account has been set up, use this information with traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic performance, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, account information can be added to all pages in WordPress via 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 Webmaster Tools. Once your account with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, use the information with traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers users a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to build a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your automated traffic generation system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need your social accounts set up in order to configure these as part of 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 pages and get new visitors to your site.
Set up accounts and profiles with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(You can post your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse website.
There are various platforms you can incorporate into your traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, 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 site.
Configuring Your WordPress Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and often overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As described in the Update Services section,
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 ping the list of services entered into the Update Services section
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section displays only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(Notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
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 in this section can influence web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to view the rest of the content from a partial feed, 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 in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to automatically ping the list of update services whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion Settings
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 content, 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 allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks Screen)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your permalinks …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using permalinks in WordPress here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every type of functionality to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to increase traffic
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, website security is something you cannot afford to ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
More information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your website’s SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website 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. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with their 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 features to your website with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site using WordPress plugins.
Many social sharing plugins let you select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which users 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 the layout and design of your website, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your content 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 Traffic
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of business online, it’s important that your website is found to comply with government regulations.
(Is Your Site Legally Compliant?)
For a detailed article about how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog, go here:
WordPress Tags & Categories
WordPress tags & categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.
(Categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post categories and tags should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories that have been set up.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites discover more of your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Only search engines can interpret XML sitemaps. Although Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When visitors searching for your site enter the wrong web address or click on a dead hyperlink, they are greeted with a 404 error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 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 Automation Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do to drive more web traffic is add new content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(WordPress 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 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 our WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read more, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-powered website and proven web marketing strategies.
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