Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is post fresh content regularly to generate 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 things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing site was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we discuss the configuration stage of this process. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site to ensure that visitors will automatically start flowing as you start to publish web content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business becoming so much more competitive, it’s worth learning about any and every advantage available to increase your own competitiveness online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand is a tremendous competitive advantage. For businesses, an expertly configured website means having a significant competitive advantage from the word “go”.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site 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 describe the differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is more labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
Allow me to illustrate this point with a little story.
Knowing Where To Tap
Things are going according to schedule in the widget assembly workshop when everything grinds to a sudden halt.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the manager decides to call in an expert.
The expert arrives shortly after being summoned and immediately heads to the control box. After staring at the electronic components for what seems like 2 minutes, the expert then produces a teeny-weeny little hammer and makes a gentle tap near the top-right side of the box.
Immediately, the assembly line begins to work as before.
The manager is delighted as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Bewildered to the point of feeling outrage, the manager picks up the phone and calls the expert. Why were they charged so much for less than five minutes work? He then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving web 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 fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for years spent developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to immediately fix a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WordPress web site set up so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other online 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 driving traffic to your website?)
While the solution to many problems often seems ridiculously simple once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than just installing a website and configuring basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts need to be set up to achieve desired outcomes
- Which options you need to configure to ensure that things will work as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a plugin, clicking on a button or two, or configuring some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your server, your website or blog, and a number of external sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simple diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine these areas in more detail.
Configuring Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings in your web hosting account that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your website may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to configure various third-party sites and services.
External Services
The basic concept of choosing external sites is that all of your content will be posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will be distributed automatically to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After incorporating these external platforms into your network, content pointing back to your site gets automatically syndicated to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and website will receive increased exposure online, helping your business tap into a new audience and traffic source.
Some third-party sites and online solutions 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, here are just some of the accounts you will need to have set up before configuring your settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of essential information, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site data, use this information to automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details have been set up, you can add your account information to WordPress using plugins and feed data automatically to various other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account and site details are set up, this information can be used to integrate and automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress provides users with a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your web traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media pages and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need to set up your various social media and social bookmarking 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 drive new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and profile pages with all of the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can You can syndicate your content to loads of social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will cover some of these tools in greater detail in the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to loads of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
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 displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your page.
There are many different sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your web traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your site.
Configuring WordPress 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 points.
Global Settings
By default, your WordPress administration area includes a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and frequently overlooked traffic notification system …
(Global 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 chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section includes only one entry …
(WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress will do the rest …
(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
***
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 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, your choice of displaying the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to view 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 feature is ticked or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to automatically notify various update services when new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings)
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 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 Screen)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways your permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, see this step-by-step tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to attract more visitors to your site
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is safe from being attacked by hackers.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to bots and hackers.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(Yoast SEO – WP Plugin)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also lets you specify how to present your content to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing features to your site easily with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site using WordPress plugins.
Many social sharing plugins let you select which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which users can unlock by liking your page.
Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring design and layout elements of your website, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes allow you to configure options and settings 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 to enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
Additional Configuration Steps For WordPress Traffic
Last (but by no means least) in the configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic, 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 when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), you need to make sure that your website is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
To learn more about the importance of having a compliant website, go here:
Post Tags And Post Categories
Tags and post categories help search engines better organize and index your pages, which helps to increase traffic.
(WordPress categories help search engines better organize and index your pages, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly 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 Phases.
When looking at ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags you have set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications discover more of your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although Google will index your site 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 – Don’t Forget To Configure It!
When visitors enter the wrong URL or click on hyperlinks pointing to destinations on your site that no longer exist, they are greeted with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your website has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do to begin bringing new web traffic is publish fresh content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The expertise required to perform the configuration process typically takes some web professionals a long time to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is addressed in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping business owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively and drive traffic sustainably with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
Would You Like To Get Notified When New Tutorials Are Published? Then Subscribe To Our Site!
***
"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com
***