Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new traffic automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to automatically bring traffic is post content regularly!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase of this process. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration stage of the traffic system. We will show you why an expertly configured WordPress site is different than a professionally configured one. You will also understand what type of work is required to make sure that when everything is fully configured, you can automatically begin bringing traffic just by posting new content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business becoming so much more competitive worldwide, it’s worth exploring any advantage available to get better results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous competitive advantage. With an expertly configured WordPress site, you have an immediate advantage from the very start.
The Configuration Phase Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here’s one way to describe the key difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence plus an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All is going fine in the gizmo assembly workshop when suddenly, all equipment stops.
As no one can figure out what’s gone wrong, the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately heads to the main control box. After staring at the electronic components for less than 3 minutes or so, the expert then produces a teeny-weeny little hammer from his shirt pocket and makes a very gentle tap near the left-hand edge of the unit.
Immediately, every machine inside the factory floor returns once again to normal.
The floor manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a request of payment for services totalling $5,000.
Unable to contain his anger, the manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them such a ludicrous fee for less than 5 minutes work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors to their sites.
How much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for spending years developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP web site configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other online 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 website?)
While many experts often make complicated situations and problems look easy, 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 settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up to get desired outcomes
- Which options you need to configure in order to ensure that things will work as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not technically challenging, but it’s quite involved. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a solution, clicking a couple of buttons, or configuring some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and so much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of many components such as your web hosting server, your website, and a number of external sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram of the steps involved in the configuration process)
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. What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your server that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your business will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like implementing server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites and online services.
External Sites
The basic concept of setting up external sites is that all of your content is published to one central location (your site) and from there, it syndicates automatically to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After incorporating these external services into your configuration, content linking back to your site gets automatically published on these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social sites, even to users of the platform itself. Your site will receive increased exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site 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)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with important information, tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your account, this 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 activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details have been set up, you can add your account information to all of your web pages in WordPress using a simple plugin and feed data instantly to many other applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account has been with Bing are set up, this information can be used with web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress provides users with a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great 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 automated web traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media and social bookmarking accounts before you can 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 get new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have profiles set up with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools (we discuss some of these tools in greater detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add an RSS feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your account.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications that can be added to your own traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
Configuring WordPress For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
Your WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains an important and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Area)
As stated in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(You can 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 visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to read 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 your traffic system is concerned, however, the most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to instantly ping 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion
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)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow your site to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your site’s post permalinks …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, see this tutorial: Improve Your WordPress SEO Using Permalinks
Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help your site generate more traffic
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is safe from a cyberattack.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and bots.
Go here for more info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress Plugin)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your site’s SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines to find and index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins let you specify which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to protect content which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring Settings – WP Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, some themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, 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 features to your pages is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons and enabling the feature …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Configuring Other WordPress Features For Improved Traffic Results
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic blueprint configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad 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 engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
We have written a detailed article about how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog here:
WordPress Tags And Post Categories
Tags and categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your web pages.
(Categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your website.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
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 set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A visitor site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although 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 can result in increased traffic.
Your 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching online for your website enter the wrong URL or click on hyperlinks pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they will typically be presented with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 error page) …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect web 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 in your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do is post great content consistently to automatically drive more traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform this stage of the traffic automation process can take many web developers 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 section of the series.
This is the end of Section Three
To continue reading this article, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of an tutorial series aimed at helping website owners learn how to grow their business online and drive traffic organically using a WordPress website or blog and proven web marketing methods.
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