Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your site into an automated web traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to attract traffic is publish content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration stage of the traffic automation process. We will help you understand why an expertly configured site is different than a professionally configured one, and how much work needs to be done to ensure that when everything is fully configured, you can automatically attract traffic when you publish web content to your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive on a global scale and are looking for any opportunity they can to improve their performance and results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the very beginning.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to understand the key difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take extra labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
To illustrate this here’s an amusing anecdote.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Things were working according to schedule in the gizmo-making plant when suddenly, production ground to a halt.
As no one could figure out what happened, the manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert headed immediately towards the control box. After staring silently at the control unit for less than 5 minutes, the expert then took out a little hammer and made a gentle tap near the left edge of the box.
Immediately, all the machinery came back to life.
The plant manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager received a service bill for $5,000.
The manager rang back the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a ridiculously high fee for less than 5 minutes work and 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 number one challenge most businesses face online is driving new traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the machines stopped functioning and no one on the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for having invested years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WP web site set up so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social followers from sites like Facebook and LinkedIn and dozens of other web properties would be immediately 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?)
While the solution to many challenges may seem 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 adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which services you need to set up to get specific outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure to ensure that things function exactly as you would like, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite involved and complicated. This is because it’s not as simple as installing and configuring one or two plugins, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many parts such as your server, your website, and a number of external sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simple diagram showing the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram of the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved.
Your Server
We’re not talking 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 tweaking settings and options in your web server that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your website may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for good and unwanted traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like implementing server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
Once your server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites and/or online services.
External Services
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all of your content should be published from a central location (your site) and from there, radiate outwards to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external sites have been added to your network, content with links pointing back to your site is automatically fed to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and website will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of the third-party sites and online services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress settings to help speed up the configuration 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:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of useful information, tools and reports about your website.
Once your account and site details are set up, the account details can be used with web traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up your Google Analytics account, you can add tracking information to all of your web pages in WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data automatically to other useful applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account has been set up, your account information can be used to automate traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers both a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your web traffic generation system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your social media accounts 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 and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have set up profiles with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we will review some of these tools in more detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to loads of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your page.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site For Traffic
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 key areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As described in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services section
By default, this section contains only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(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 on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers 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 blog to read 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 most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to automatically notify your update services list whenever a new post gets 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
Although this section is mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to blogs 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways your permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
WP Traffic Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to increase traffic
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No web site is safe from being hacked.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to bots and hackers.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your site’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, classify and index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with their social networks can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social sharing to your website easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can add social features to your site easily with free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social plugins allow you to select which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom 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 pages which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
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 design and layout of your website, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Configuring Additional WordPress Areas
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can cause serious damage to your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site is found to comply with government laws and regulations.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
If you need help understanding the importance of having a compliant website, see this article:
Post Tags And Categories
WordPress post categories & tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your pages.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s categories and tags should be discussed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stages.
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
A visitor site map that displays all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications find your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although search engines like Google can index your site just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Your WordPress 404 Page Not Found
When online visitors type in the wrong URL or click on a hyperlink pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they will normally be greeted with a 404 error page …
(A 404 Page)
A 404 Not Found error page can be configured to funnel visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up in your server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do is post web content regularly to automatically bring more web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of skills and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some website 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 can be automated. This step is explained in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven web marketing strategies.
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