Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to automatically start generating more traffic is post fresh content consistently!)
In Part 2, we discussed critical setup decisions. We explained 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 site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we discuss the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured in order to automatically start driving web traffic simply by consistently posting content on your site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business becoming increasingly more competitive, it’s worth learning about any and every opportunity you can to improve your own results online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous competitive advantage. For business owners, an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start as soon as their site is launched.
The Configuration Phase Is What Makes All The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to describe the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence plus an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does it take additional work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
Allow me to illustrate this with an amusing anecdote.
A Semi-True Story …
Things were going well in the widget assembly workshop when all of a sudden, everything came to a stop.
As no one could figure out what happened, the manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert headed out immediately to the main control box. After staring at the wires and circuitry for 5 minutes, the expert then took out a tiny little hammer and made a very gentle tap near the left edge of the box.
Immediately, the machinery sprang to life once again.
The plant manager was relieved as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received an invoice for $5,000.
The manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why they were being charged such a ridiculously high fee for less than five minutes work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the business had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to get paid fairly for having spent years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately assess and avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a site set up so all you have to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other online properties would be instantly 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 attracting new visitors to your website?)
While experts often make complex solutions look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to work things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring settings for the client. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party services need to be set up to achieve desired results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured to make sure processes will work exactly as you expect, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a plugin, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of a number of different components including your web server, your website or blog, and various external sites …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we were to create a simplified flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your server that affect how your website will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web-hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your site will attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites or online services.
Third-Party Web Properties
The basic idea of setting up external sites is that all content should be published from a central location (your site) and from there, get automatically distributed to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After adding these external platforms to your setup, content with links pointing back to your website is automatically syndicated to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your business will benefit from added exposure online, helping your business tap into a whole new audience and traffic source.
Some web properties and online services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site’s 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:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with essential data, tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site details with Google, this information can be used to automate 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 site’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add traffic monitoring information to WordPress via a simple plugin and feed data automatically to many other online applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account is set up, you can use this information to integrate and automate web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers website owners a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social media accounts set up 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 pages and attract new traffic to your site.
You should have profiles with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will cover some of these tools in more detail in the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging technology platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse page.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to 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 site.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
By default, WordPress includes a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As stated below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely chosen 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
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section contains only one entry …
(Writing Settings – WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – 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 visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays 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 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.
As far as your traffic system is concerned, however, the most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically notify various update services when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(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 blogs 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings Section)
The examples below show some of the ways permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
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 plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to attract more visitors to your site
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website 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 cannot afford to ignore.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets.
To learn more, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(SEO plugins help increase traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your website’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines to find, classify and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website with free or inexpensive plugins)
There are many free or inexpensive social sharing plugins to choose from.
Many social sharing plugins let you specify which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update 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 users can unlock by sharing your page.
WP 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 the design and layout of your site, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure settings for improved traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your website is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, 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 begin to visit your website.
If you make money online, you need to make sure that your website remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, see this article:
Post Tags & Post Categories
Post categories and post tags help search engines better classify and index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your web pages.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and categories should be discussed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
When looking at ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post categories and tags have been set up correctly to deliver optimal results.
Add A Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, 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 not the same thing. Although search engines like Google will index your site just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your Site’s 404 Page Not Found
When visitors enter the wrong URL or click on a link pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they are presented with a 404 page …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up on your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your website or blog has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do is post great content on a regular basis to automatically drive traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some web developers months to learn.
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 section of our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section 3
To continue reading, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven web marketing strategies.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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