Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your website into an automated web traffic machine 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, all you have to do is publish great content regularly to attract new traffic!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase of the automation process. We helped you understand 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 site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured to ensure that new visitors will automatically start flowing as you start publishing fresh content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive worldwide and are researching every opportunity they can to improve their performance online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage over other competitors. An expertly configured WordPress site gives your business an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
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 set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s one way to describe the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing little story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All is going just fine in the widget manufacturing plant when the machines suddenly comes to a halt.
As no one can figure out what’s wrong, the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert immediately walks towards the main control box. After staring at the wiring diagrams for 5 minutes or so, the expert then takes out a tiny hammer and makes a single tap near the top-right side of the unit.
Immediately, everything comes back to life.
The floor manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager receives a request of payment for services for $5,000.
With a sense of outrage, the manager dials the expert. Why did he charge them so much for so little time delivering such a minimal amount of work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive web traffic to their sites.
How much money did the factory stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to be compensated fairly for spending years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog set up and configured so all you had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other traffic-generating web 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 driving traffic to your website?)
While the solution to many challenges often seems quite simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to work things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party accounts need to be set up to achieve certain outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured to ensure that everything works how you have planned, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite involved and complicated. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing a solution, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many different components such as your web server, your website or blog, and various third-party sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we create a simplified diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the configuration process)
Let’s examine what’s involved in more detail.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings in your web-hosting account that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web hosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your website will attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for good and unwanted traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like configuring server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step is to configure various third-party sites.
External Web Properties And Accounts – Configuration
The concept behind adding external sites is that all of your content should be posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, get 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 network, content linked back to your site is automatically posted to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and business will be given additional exposure to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some sites and online solutions will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site’s 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 before configuring your settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmasters lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with important data, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site data, you can use the account information to integrate and automate traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add your account code to all of your pages in WordPress via any of several Google Analytics plugins and send data instantly to other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account is with Bing have been set up, use this information with traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers users a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by various 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 system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your social media accounts 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 attract new visitors to your site.
You should set up profiles with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we will look at some of these tools in more detail further below and during the Automation phase).
(There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own RebelMouse social feed.
There are various platforms you can add to your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website Or Blog For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
By default, your WordPress admin area includes a Settings section that allows you to modify 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)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated 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 configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services box
By default, only one service is available …
(Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress will do the rest …
(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 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 of displaying the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears 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 to get the rest of the content from excerpts, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to ping the update services list whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion
Although the settings in this section are 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 Section)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks Screen)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your SEO-friendly URLs …
(Configuring permalinks)
For a detailed tutorial on setting up WordPress permalinks, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WP Traffic Generation Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is guaranteed immunity from being attacked by hackers.
(Security Plugins help prevent 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 details:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your site more search engine friendly …
(SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, classify and index, it also lets you specify how to present your content to Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you provide content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing to your website easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social sharing buttons to your website with free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social sharing plugins allow you to 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 shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress Theme Features – 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 elements of your site, some themes also give you built-in options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes allow you to configure options and settings for better traffic results)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons to your content is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
Additional Features To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you make money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website is found to comply with all legal requirements.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
To learn more about the importance of having a legally compliant website, go here:
WordPress Post Categories & Tags
Tags and post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your pages.
(Post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s tags and categories should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories you have set up.
Site Map
A site map that displays all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover more of your website content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although search engines like Google can index your site just from 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 Page – Don’t Forget To Configure This Too!
When online users enter the wrong web address or click on an invalid link, they are presented with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 page can be turned into a useful source of traffic to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your website or blog has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then to automatically begin attracting traffic is publish great content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different components and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform this process can take many web developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is addressed in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read more, click on the link below:
- Website Traffic Blueprint Part 4 – How To Create An Automated Traffic-Getting Machine With WordPress
This tutorial is part of an tutorial series aimed at helping website owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-powered website and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
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