Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a website into an automated web traffic generating machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 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 blog, all you have to do is post web content regularly to automatically drive more traffic!)
In Part 2, we focused on 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 website, and what to do if your website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured in order to automatically begin attracting new visitors as you start to publish web content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Also, the business landscape is becoming ever more competitive on a global scale and businesses are exploring any and every advantage they believe will help them improve their performance and results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous competitive advantage. Having an expertly configured website gives your business a flying start as soon as your website is launched.
The Configuration Process Is What Makes All 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 one way to describe the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and an 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.
Allow me to illustrate this with a story.
Knowing Where To Tap
Everything was running smoothly in the widget workshop when things suddenly came to a halt.
No one could figure out what has gone wrong and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and, without saying a word, immediately walked to the control box. After staring at the electronic components for 2 minutes or so, the expert then produced a little hammer from his pocket and made a single tap near the right edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything sprang to life again.
The manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager received a request of payment for services rendered totalling $5,000.
The manager rang back the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged such a large amount of money for less than 5 minutes work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived and was placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive web traffic consistently to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to be compensated fairly for having spent years building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to assess and avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a website set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other online properties would be instantly 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 website?)
While the solution to many problems often seems quite easy in hindsight, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to get various functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up and activated to achieve certain outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured to ensure that everything will work how you want, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite involved. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing and configuring one or two plugins, configuring some settings in your dashboard area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your web server, your website or blog, and a number of third-party sites and services …
(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 something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these areas.
Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for site installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is configuring settings and options in your server that affect how your site will handle all 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 traffic your website may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like integrating spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After your web server settings have been checked and configured, the next step is to configure various external sites and services.
External Sites & Services – Configuration
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all of your content should be posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it will radiate outwards to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After adding these external platforms to your traffic network, content pointing back to your site will be automatically posted to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and site benefits from added exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some external sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your 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:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of essential data, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account with Google Webmasters have been set up, this information can be used with web 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 website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your account, you can add traffic monitoring code to WordPress via a simple plugin and feed data automatically to various other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account and site details are set up, you can use this information to integrate and automate web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress provides users with a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, 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 traffic generation system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need to set up your social 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 sites and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site.
You should set up accounts with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will cover some of these tools in greater detail during the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online technology platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add a feed from your WordPress site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own RebelMouse social feed.
There are various platforms that can be incorporated into your own traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up third-party site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Configuring WordPress Settings
The WordPress admin area contains a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As described below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services section
By default, only one service is available …
(WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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
***
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 visitors 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 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 site to get the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to 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, do not check this box …
(Settings Menu – 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 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings enable WordPress to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings Screen)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your search-friendly URLS …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: How To Configure Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic to your site
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot afford to ignore the importance of website security.
(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 botnets and hackers.
To learn more, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving improving how search engines like Google find, classify and index your website …
(SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily with free or inexpensive plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins to choose from.
Most social sharing plugins let you select which 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 likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress Traffic Theme Features – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring design and layout elements of your website, many themes also include built-in options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for improved traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as clicking a few buttons and enabling the feature …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the WordPress traffic blueprint configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for 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 engage in any form of business online, it’s important that your website remains compliant with all government regulations.
(Does Your Site Comply With The Law?)
We have written a detailed article about the importance of having a legally compliant website here:
WordPress Categories & Tags
Post categories & tags help search engines index your website, which improves traffic.
(Post categories help to improve your site’s SEO, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s post tags and post categories should be reviewed and set up during the Website Planning Phase.
When configuring your web site to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Add A Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools find your online content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. HTML site maps provide readers with a an understandable map of how your content is organized, while XML sitemaps contain code that only search engine bots can interpret. Although search engines like Google will index your site just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Don’t Forget Your Site’s 404 Page Not Found
When online users type in the wrong web address or click on a hyperlink pointing to a page on your site that no longer exists, they will normally be presented with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect 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 from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do is publish new content on a consistent basis to generate more traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and external web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The expertise required to perform the configuration stage of the traffic automation process typically takes many website 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 covered in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online using a WordPress website and proven web marketing strategies.
Subscribe To Our Site And Get Notified When New Tutorials Get Published!
***
"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie
***