Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is publish web content consistently to automatically drive more traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to start 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 website was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this article, we look at the configuration stage of the traffic automation process. We will explain what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different, and how much work needs to be done to ensure that when all is fully configured, web traffic will automatically start flowing simply by adding web content to your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as their greatest challenge online. With business getting increasingly more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth looking into any advantage available to improve your performance online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous competitive advantage. With an expertly configured website, your business has a flying start from the moment your site is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to explain the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does it take more work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing anecdote.
Knowing Where To Tap
Things are going according to schedule in the gizmo-making workshop when everything grinds to a sudden halt.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
The expert arrives soon afterward and, without saying a word, walks straight towards the control box. After staring silently at the board for 2 minutes, the expert then produces a teeny-weeny hammer from his tool belt and makes a gentle tap near the right-hand corner of the box.
Immediately, everything springs back to life.
The floor manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the factory manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Feeling angry, the factory manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving new traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the machines stopped functioning and no one on the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to ask to be compensated fairly for spending years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WP web site configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
While experts often make complex solutions look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring some basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which services need to be set up and activated to achieve desired results
- Which settings need to be configured to ensure that things will work as expected, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite involved. This is because it’s not as simple as installing a solution, clicking a button, or configuring some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration stage is a complex process that involves your web server, your site, and various external sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we were to create a simple flowchart showing the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram of the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine these areas in more detail.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings in your hosting account specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your website may attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like configuring server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites.
External Accounts
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all content gets published from one central location (your site) and from there, it gets distributed automatically to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external services have been added to your traffic network, content pointing back to your site is automatically syndicated to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your website will then receive exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some third-party sites 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 Search Console
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with essential information, tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your Google Webmaster Tools account, this information can be used with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account, you can add tracking code to all of your pages in WordPress using a plugin and send data automatically to many other online applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account, this information can be used to automate web traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your web traffic system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social accounts before you can configure these as part of 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.
You should have profiles set up with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are many social sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work well with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(There are loads of social sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online technology platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary 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 that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your website.
There are various platforms that can be incorporated into your own traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu 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 affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains an important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Screen)
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 purposely configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section includes only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section and WordPress takes care of 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 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 text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to get the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to notify all the update services you have listed in the Update Services area when 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 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 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings Section)
The examples below show some of the ways post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using permalinks here: Improve Your WordPress SEO With SEO-Friendly URLs
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is immune from cyber-attacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to botnets and hackers.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(Yoast SEO – WP SEO Plugin)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it also lets you specify how to display your content to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with others online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website using free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website using WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins allow you to select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring WordPress Traffic Generation Theme Features
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that 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 provide built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) include built-in traffic optimization features)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing features to your pages is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic Automation – Additional Configuration Steps
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and unwelcome 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 do business online, you need to make sure that your website remains compliant with all government laws and regulations.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
For a detailed article on how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website, refer to this article:
Tags & Categories
WordPress tags & post categories help search engines better classify and index your pages, which improves traffic.
(WordPress post categories help search engines index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s categories and tags should be reviewed and set up during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags you have set up.
HTML Site Map
A visitor 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 your site’s content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Only search engines can understand an XML sitemap. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Configure Your 404 Error Page
When visitors enter the wrong web address into their web browser or click on a dead link, they are presented with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
A 404 Not Found error page can redirect confused visitors to your functional web 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 on your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website or blog expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do then to bring more traffic is add great content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform this phase of the traffic automation process typically takes many web professionals months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is explained in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Part Three
To keep reading, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive tutorial series aimed at helping business owners learn how to grow their business with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven web marketing strategies.
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