Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is post new content regularly to begin bringing more traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at critical setup decisions. 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 using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this section, we look at the configuration stage of the traffic automation process. We will explain why an expertly configured WordPress site is different. You will also discover just what type of work is required to make sure that when everything is fully set up and configured, you can automatically drive traffic whenever you add fresh content on your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With business becoming so much more competitive worldwide, it’s worth exploring any advantage available to increase your own competitiveness online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage over other competitors. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start as soon as their site is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to understand the main difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only is extra labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing anecdote.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All was moving along in the gizmo assembly workshop when all machinery suddenly came to a complete stop.
As no one could figure out what happened, the plant manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
The expert arrived soon afterwards and immediately headed to the main control box. After staring at the schematics for 2 minutes, the expert then produced a teeny-weeny hammer and made a gentle tap near the right edge of the box.
Immediately, the assembly line sprang to life once again.
The floor manager was delighted as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager received a service bill for $5,000.
The manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why he had charged them so much for less than five minutes work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived and was placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive visitors to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the plant stand to lose when the equipment stopped functioning and no one on the factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for having spent years building up the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly fix a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WordPress web site configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social media and dozens of other web properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
While many experts often make difficult solutions look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than just installing a website and configuring a few settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up to achieve specific outcomes
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to make sure things function as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving web 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. It’s not as easy as installing and configuring a solution, configuring some settings in your admin area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many parts such as your web server, your website or blog, and various external sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we create a simple diagram of the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps.
Configuring The Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes. What we are talking about, is configuring settings and options in your webhosting account specifically for handling 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 beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your business can 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 adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like configuring server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess and error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and services.
External Sites
The basic concept of adding external sites is that all content should be posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it will radiate outwards to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external services have been added to your setup, content linked back to your website is automatically fed to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and website will then receive exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.
Some sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your settings to help 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 Webmaster Tools)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of important information, tools and reports about your website.
Once your account and site details with Google Webmaster Tools have been set up, the information can be used with web traffic-related 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 traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account, you can add tracking code to all of your web pages in WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data automatically to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account and entering site details with Bing, this information can be used to automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to grow a professional online presence for your business.
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 this into your automated web traffic generation system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites 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 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 and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts with all of the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can You can syndicate your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose those that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we will cover some of these tools in greater detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are lots of social sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier sources of traffic. 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 that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute social content to social networks)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your page.
There are many different solutions you can add to your traffic system. 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 accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website
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 key areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress administration area includes a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
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 configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services section
By default, this section lists only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services 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 visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to get the rest of the content from excerpts, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The most important setting here as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly ping all the update services you have specified in the Update Services section whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
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 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings 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 search-friendly URLS …
(Configuring permalinks)
To learn more about setting up WP permalinks, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress Traffic Plugins – Configuration
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to improve traffic generation
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is safe from being hacked.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to botnets and hackers.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your site more search engine friendly …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it allows you to configure 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 share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social features to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social share plugins let you specify 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 followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which users can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, many themes also give you options for improving SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for improved traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your content is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure For Better Traffic Flow
Last (but by no means least) in the WordPress traffic system configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your website stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article about how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your site here:
WordPress Categories & Tags
Post categories and tags help search engines index your pages, which helps to increase traffic.
(Categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your web pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s post tags and post categories should be set up during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories that have been set up.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
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 applications find more of your website content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching online for your website enter the wrong web address into their browser or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they will typically be greeted with a 404 page …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured into a useful source of traffic to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your web server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do to start generating new web traffic is publish fresh content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many website developers months to acquire.
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 explained in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Part 3
To keep reading about this topic, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively and drive traffic automatically with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven online marketing methods.
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