Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to automatically generate more web traffic is publish web content on a consistent basis!)
In Part 2, we focused on critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to start 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 site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration phase of the traffic blueprint. We will show you how a WordPress site should be configured in order to automatically start attracting new traffic when you start to post web content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as their greatest challenge online. With business becoming so much more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth learning about every advantage available to improve your own results online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage over the competition. For businesses, having an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the very start.
The Configuration Stage 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 an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to describe the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
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 expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a joke.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Everything is running smoothly in the gizmo factory when suddenly, things stops.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately heads to the control box. After staring at the wiring diagrams for 3 minutes or so, the expert then produces a tiny hammer and makes a very gentle tap near the left edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything begins to work once again.
The plant manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager receives a service bill for $5,000.
Bewildered and bordering on a sense of outrage, the manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for less than 5 minutes work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving visitors to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the business had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to be compensated fairly for having spent years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WordPress website set up so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networks and dozens of other online 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 website?)
While the solution to many problems can seem ridiculously easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than just installing a website and configuring a few internal settings. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which services need to be set up to get certain outcomes
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure in order to ensure that things work as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite involved and complicated. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing and configuring one or two plugins, clicking on a button or two, or tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web server, your website or blog, and a number of external sites or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine what’s involved.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings in your web hosting account specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your hosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your business may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like configuring server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites.
External Services
The basic idea of setting up external sites is that all of your content should be published from a central location (your site) and from there, radiate outwards to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external sites to your setup, content linking back to your site will be automatically syndicated to these platforms. Your content and business will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some external sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress settings to help save time 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 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.
Once your account and site details are set up, your information can be used with web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up Google Analytics, traffic monitoring information can be integrated with WordPress using a simple plugin used with other applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account and entering site data, this information can be used to automate traffic-related 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 platform if you are planning to grow a professional online presence.
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 at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your traffic generation system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need your social media and social bookmarking accounts set up before you can 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 sites and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site.
You should have profiles set up with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick those that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we will look at some of these tools in greater detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add an RSS feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your website.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications you can incorporate into your traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a configuration plan 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 site.
Configuring Your WordPress Site
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most important and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As described in this 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 notify the update services entered into the Update Services text area
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is listed …
(WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically …
(WordPress lets you 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
This section affects how your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, 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 get the rest of the content from a partial feed, 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 checkbox is enabled or not.
Generally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to instantly notify various update services whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
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 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow your site to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your site’s permalinks …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, go here: How To Set Up Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring Settings – WordPress Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with the effects of 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, securing your web sites is something you cannot ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to attacks from hackers and bots.
Go here for more information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages more search engine friendly …
(WP SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages 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 Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social share plugins allow you to choose which social 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 social sharing plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress Traffic Theme Settings – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring layout and design aspects of your site, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure settings and options for better traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your content 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)
Additional Configuration Areas For Your WordPress Site
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic system configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online (or plan to), it’s important that your website stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done.
(Does Your Site Comply With The Law?)
We have created a detailed article about the importance of having a compliant website here:
WordPress Post Tags And Post Categories
Categories and tags help search engines better classify and index your pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help to improve your site’s SEO, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s tags and categories during the Website Planning Stages.
When configuring your web site to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications find more of your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although search engines like Google will index your pages 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 results in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When online visitors type in the wrong web address into their web browser or click on a hyperlink pointing to a page on your site that no longer exists, they are greeted with a 404 error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do is post web content on a regular basis to automatically drive more traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some website professionals a long time to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive tutorial series designed to help site owners learn how to grow their business and drive traffic automatically with a WordPress website and proven web marketing strategies.
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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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