Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new visitors automatically to your website using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to automatically generate web traffic is post great content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase. We explained 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 existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this section of the series, we discuss the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured in order to begin to get new visitors automatically as you start posting content on your web site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With business becoming ever more competitive worldwide, it’s worth exploring any and every opportunity you can to increase your own competitiveness online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage over other competitors. With an expertly configured website, you have a flying start and an immediate competitive advantage online.
The Configuration Process Is What Makes The Difference
There is a significant 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’s one way to describe the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get 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 tool!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
To illustrate this point here is a little story.
Knowing Where To Tap
All was going just fine in the gizmo-making workshop when all of a sudden, all machines stopped.
As no one could figure out what happened, the floor manager decided to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert headed immediately towards the control box. After staring at the wiring board for 5 minutes, the expert then produced a tiny hammer from his tool belt and made a gentle tap near the bottom-right corner of the box.
Immediately, everything started working as before.
The manager was grateful and relieved as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received a request of payment for services rendered totalling $5,000.
The factory manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why they were being charged so much for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving web traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the factory stand to lose when the equipment stopped functioning and no one on the factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to be compensated fairly for having invested years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to immediately fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog set up and configured 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 better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
While experts often make complicated solutions look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up to get specific results
- Which settings need to be configured to ensure that everything will function as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring one or two plugins, tweaking some settings in your dashboard area or clicking on a button or two … it’s all of this and so much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of different components such as your server, your website or blog, and various external sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these steps in more detail.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes. What we are talking about, is configuring settings in your web server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your site will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like implementing spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email 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 checked and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and/or online services.
External Accounts
The basic concept of choosing external sites is that all content should be posted to a central location (your site) and from there, be distributed automatically to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external services into your traffic system, content pointing back to your site will be automatically added to search, social and aggregator sites. Your site will then be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some sites will need to be 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, you will want to set up the following accounts before configuring your settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmasters)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic 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 account information with 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 website’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account, traffic monitoring information can be easily integrated with WordPress using a plugin used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account, use your account information with web traffic 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 provides users with a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your web traffic system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need your social media accounts set up in order to 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 accounts and bring new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and pages set up with all of the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can You can syndicate your content to loads of social sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose those that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(You can syndicate your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an 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 various technologies and third-party applications you can add to your own web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global WordPress Settings
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Section)
As described below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have specifically chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services section
By default, this section lists only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section …
(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 your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website to get the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The most important setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to instantly notify various update services whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings)
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 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)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the options for configuring your post permalinks …
(Configuring permalinks)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using permalinks in WordPress here: Configuring Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Traffic Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including traffic generation.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help your site generate more traffic
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is guaranteed immunity from a cyber-attack.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and botnets.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving improving how search engines like Google and Bing find and index your website …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress Plugins For SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your site’s search engine optimization. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with others online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website using WordPress plugins)
There are many free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Many social sharing plugins allow you to select which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress – Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your website, many themes also give you options for improving SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure settings and options for improved traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure For Increased Traffic
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can damage your business when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do business online, it’s important that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
To learn more about the importance of having a compliant website, see this article:
Post Categories And Tags
Post categories and tags help search engines better classify and index your web pages, which improves traffic.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your web pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s post tags and categories should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Add A Site Map
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites discover your website content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web 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 can index your site just using 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 Error Page – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When visitors searching for your website enter the wrong URL or click on a dead hyperlink, they are greeted with a 404 Not Found page …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do to automatically drive more web traffic is post fresh content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform the configuration phase of the traffic automation process typically takes many web developers 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 addressed in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read more, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive tutorial series designed to help website owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven web marketing methods.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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