Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic generating machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this series, we 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 to automatically begin bringing web traffic is publish great content consistently!)
In Part 2, we focused on 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 existing website was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will look at the configuration stage of the traffic system. We explain how to configure a WordPress site so you can attract web traffic automatically when you post new content to your site.
WordPress Traffic System – 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. Also, the business landscape is becoming increasingly more competitive and businesses are looking for any and every advantage they believe will help them improve their results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge competitive advantage. For business owners, an expertly configured website means having an immediate competitive advantage from the word “go”.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to describe the difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
Let me illustrate this point with a joke.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything is going fine in the gizmo-making workshop when all of a sudden, things stops.
As no one can figure out what is wrong, the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrives and, without saying a word, goes directly to the control box. After staring silently at the wiring board for 2 minutes or so, the expert then produces a little hammer and makes a gentle tap near the right edge of the control unit.
Immediately, every machine starts working again.
The plant manager is filled with joy as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager receives a request of payment for services rendered for the sum of $5,000.
Confused and outraged, the factory manager picks up the phone and dials the expert. Demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a large amount of money for less than five minutes work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive new visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to ask to be compensated fairly for having spent years developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to assess and avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your website or blog configured so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social sites like Facebook and Twitter 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 attracting new visitors to your site?)
While the solution to many challenges may seem quite simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring some basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which third-party services you need to set up and activate to get desired outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured in order to ensure that things will work as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not technically challenging, but it’s quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a plugin, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of different components including your web hosting server, your site, and a number of external sites and services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we create a simple flowchart of the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the configuration process)
Let’s examine these steps in more detail.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about configuring settings and options in your server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic you can attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for good and unwanted traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
Once your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites.
External Accounts
The idea behind setting up external sites is that all of your content will get published to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will be distributed automatically to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After incorporating these external services into your setup, content with links pointing back to your site is automatically posted to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social networks, even to users of the platform itself. Your content will receive added exposure online, helping your business tap into a whole new audience and traffic source.
Some sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your settings to 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 Webmasters
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with essential data, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account is set up, you can use the account information with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account and site details, you can add tracking information to WordPress via any of several Google Analytics plugins and send data instantly to various other online applications and web properties.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, use the account information with traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers website owners a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to build a professional web presence.
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 traffic generation system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social media and social bookmarking accounts set up before you can integrate these with 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 bring new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts and profile pages with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can You can post your content to many social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select those that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own RebelMouse page.
There are various sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a configuration 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.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Configuring WordPress Settings
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
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
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 Section)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section displays only one entry …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(Notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
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 visitors will see your content 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 summaries of your post, affects how your content appears 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 blog 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 most important setting here as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Generally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to ping various update services when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
Although discussion settings 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 posts, 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)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow your site to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings Screen)
Here are some of the options for configuring your permalinks …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
For a detailed tutorial on setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add just about every type of functionality to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are 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. No matter what kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of web security.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
For more details, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving improving the way search engines find, classify and index your website …
(WP SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your site’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find, crawl and index, it also lets you specify how to display your content in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with others online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are many free or inexpensive 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 followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring Settings – WordPress Themes
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 the layout and design of your website, many themes also include options for improving SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your site is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you do business online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, see this article:
Post Tags And Categories
WordPress post categories and tags help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.
(WordPress post categories help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s tags and categories during the Website Planning Phases.
When configuring your web site 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 Site Map
A site map that displays all of your posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Forget This!
When visitors searching for your site enter the wrong web address or click on a dead hyperlink, they are presented with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website or blog expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then is post new content consistently to automatically attract more web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The skills and knowledge required to perform the configuration stage of the traffic automation process typically takes 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 addressed in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Part 3
To continue reading, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively with a WordPress-powered website and proven web marketing methods.
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