Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new visitors automatically to your site using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is post fresh content regularly to automatically begin bringing web traffic!)
In Part Two, we focused on critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to get started 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 website was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this section, we discuss the configuration phase of the traffic blueprint. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to attract new visitors automatically as you begin publishing content to your web site.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive worldwide and are researching every advantage they believe will improve their results and performance online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage over the competition. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start as soon as their website is launched.
Configuration 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 developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to describe the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
To illustrate this here is a joke.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All was going well in the widget assembly line when everything ground to a sudden stop.
No one could figure out what happened and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert headed out directly to the control box. After staring at the electronic components for 3 minutes or less, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy hammer from his utility belt and made a single tap about one inch from the right edge of the control unit.
Immediately, the plant started working as before.
The manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager received an invoice for the sum of $5,000.
The manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay 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 statement arrived in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt 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 spent years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress website configured so all you have to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would you save?
(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 challenges is often ridiculously simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than installing a website and configuring a few internal settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up and activated to get certain results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to ensure that things will function as planned, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite involved and complicated. This is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a piece of software, tweaking some options and settings in your admin area or clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your web server, your web site, and a number of third-party sites and online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the configuration process)
Let’s examine these steps.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In 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 traffic your business will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like configuring spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After your server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites.
External Services
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all content should be posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external sites into your traffic system, content with links pointing back to your site gets automatically posted to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social sites, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your business will receive increased exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.
Some of the web properties and online platforms will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site 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 Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with essential information, tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site details, this information can be used to automate web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, marketing activities, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
After setting up your account and site details, tracking information can be added to all pages in WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and and sent to other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account and entering site data, use this information with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers website owners the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to grow a professional business presence online.
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 explain how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media accounts in order to configure these as part of 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 get new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and pages set up with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose those that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(You can syndicate your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add an RSS feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute social content to social networks)
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 own RebelMouse page.
There are many different solutions that can be added to your web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to 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.
Configuring Your WordPress 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.
Global Settings – WordPress
By default, your WordPress dashboard area includes a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As described below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have purposely chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, 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 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 summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website or 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 main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to automatically notify all the update services you have listed in the Update Services area whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion
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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow your site to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks Section)
Here are some of the ways site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using permalinks in WordPress here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress – Traffic Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No website is guaranteed immunity from being attacked by hackers.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
Go here for more info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(Yoast SEO – WP SEO Plugin)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your website’s SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with members of their own online communities can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing features to your site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can add social features to your website easily with free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social share plugins allow you to select which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress – Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, many themes also include options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a 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 clicking a couple of buttons to enable the function …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
Additional Sections To Configure
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and unwanted traffic but also for all the situations that can cause serious damage to your business as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online, it’s important that your site is found to comply with government regulations.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
We have created a detailed article about why it’s important to have a legally compliant website here:
Post Categories & Tags
WordPress post categories and tags help search engines index your web pages, which improves traffic.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s post tags and categories should be discussed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
When looking at ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags you have set up.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover your web 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 different things. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, whereas an XML sitemap is mostly filled with code that only search engines can interpret. Although Google can index your site just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your 404 Error Page
When visitors searching for your website enter the wrong web address into their browser or click on links pointing to pages on your website that no longer exist, they will normally be presented with a 404 page …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 Not Found error page can be configured into a useful source of traffic to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up on your web server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website or blog has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do is publish great content on a regular basis to automatically begin attracting new web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform this stage of the traffic automation process typically takes many web developers a long time to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next article in our WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This article is part of an tutorial series designed to help business owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively using a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven web marketing methods.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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