Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive traffic automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this article series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to begin bringing new traffic is add content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we discussed critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. We explain what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different than a professionally configured one. You will also learn just what kind of work is required to ensure that when everything is fully configured, web traffic will automatically start flowing simply by posting content on your site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive on a global scale and are researching any and every advantage they can to improve their results online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge advantage. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
The Difference Is In The Configuration Process
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here’s a simple way to explain the differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Let me illustrate this with an amusing story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All is going fine in the gizmo assembly plant when all of a sudden, everything grounds to a stop.
As no one can figure out what’s happened, the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
The expert arrives shortly after being summoned and, without saying a word, walks immediately to the control box. After staring silently at the electronic components for less than 5 minutes, the expert then produces a teensy-weensy hammer and makes a very gentle tap about 2 cm from the left side of the box.
Immediately, everything springs back to life.
The manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager receives a bill for $5,000.
Bewildered and bordering on a sense of outrage, the factory manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged such a large amount of money for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive traffic to their sites.
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 demand fair compensation for years spent developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and repair a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a web site configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other web properties would be instantly 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 many experts often make complex situations and problems look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts need to be set up and activated to achieve certain outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured to make sure things work as envisioned, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. It’s not just about installing one or two plugins, clicking a button, or tweaking some settings in your admin area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of many different components including your web hosting server, your website, and various third-party sites …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we were to create a simple diagram showing the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a brief look at what’s involved.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for site installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your webhosting account that affect how your website will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your server settings need to be checked 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 unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwanted traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like integrating server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess and error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After fine-tuning your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to set up and configure a number of third-party sites and services.
Integration With External Solutions
The basic idea of setting up external sites is that all of your content is posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it gets distributed automatically to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external sites to your configuration, content linked back to your site gets automatically published on search, social and aggregator sites. Your site will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some external sites and online services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress settings to help speed up the 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 before configuring your WordPress site’s settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmasters lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential data, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account and site data are set up, you can use this information with web traffic settings 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 performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add tracking information to all of your web pages in WordPress using a plugin and send data automatically to many other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account and site details are 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.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. 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 Part Four of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social media and social bookmarking accounts set up 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 pages set up with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(There are loads of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online web platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is a news 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 that can be incorporated into your own traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up third-party site accounts, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress Site Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress Settings
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains an important and often overlooked traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Area)
As stated in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have intentionally chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is listed …
(Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post to this section …
(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 readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site to read 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 main setting here as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically ping various update services when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Settings Menu – 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 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 Section)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow your site to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
To learn more about setting up WordPress permalinks, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Configuring WordPress Permalinks
WordPress Traffic Plugin Settings – Configuration
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at 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. Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, website security is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your site more search engine friendly …
(SEO plugins help increase traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it also lets you specify how to present your content in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with others can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily using free or inexpensive plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Most social sharing plugins let you specify which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which users can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress – Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your website, some themes also include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic – Additional Configuration Areas
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:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth 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 cause serious damage to your business as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do any type of business online, it’s important that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?)
To learn more about the importance of having a legally compliant website, refer to this article:
WordPress Categories & Tags
Tags and categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your pages.
(Post categories help search engines better organize and index your pages, which improves traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your site’s post tags and post categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
When looking at ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories you have set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools discover more of your web content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, while an XML sitemap is mostly code that only search engine bots can interpret. Although Google will index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which plugins 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 URL into their web browser or click on a dead hyperlink, they will normally be greeted with a 404 error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
A 404 page can be turned into a useful source of traffic to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you then need to do to drive more web traffic is post web content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some website developers months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Part Three
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 cost-effectively with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy to implement.
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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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