Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your website into an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to automatically begin bringing new web traffic is add fresh content regularly!)
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 things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this article, we will discuss the configuration phase of the traffic system. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that visitors will automatically start flowing when you begin posting fresh content on your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by business owners as their greatest challenge online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive and are exploring any and every advantage they can to get better results online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge advantage over the competition. For business owners, having an expertly configured website means having a significant competitive advantage from the word “go”.
The Configuration Stage Is 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 builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to describe the main difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only is additional work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
Let me illustrate this point with a story.
Knowing Where To Tap
Things are going fine in the widget assembly factory when suddenly, everything ceases working.
No one can figure out what’s gone wrong and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrives and, without uttering a word, heads out directly to the control box. After staring silently at the box for less than 3 minutes or so, the expert then produces a teensy-weensy little hammer and makes a very gentle tap near the top-right side of the control unit.
Immediately, everything returns to normal.
The plant manager is grateful and relieved 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 of payment for services for the sum of $5,000.
Feeling angry, the manager dials the expert. Why were they charged so much for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work? He then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives and is placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving traffic to their sites.
How much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to be compensated fairly for having invested years building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly repair a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your website or blog set up and configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other web 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 website?)
Although the solution to many challenges may seem quite easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services you need to set up and activate to get certain outcomes
- Which options you need to configure in order to make sure things work as envisioned, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite involved. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing a plugin, clicking a button, or tweaking some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration phase is a process that involves your server, your website or blog, and various third-party sites and services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we create a simplified flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the configuration phase)
Let’s examine what’s involved.
Configuring The Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for installation purposes. What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings and options in your web server that affect how your site 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 business may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like configuring server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these, the next step is to set up and configure various external sites.
Integration With External Sites
The basic idea of setting up external sites is that all content should be posted to 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 configuration, content with links pointing back to your website is automatically posted to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and website benefits from additional exposure online, helping your business tap into a whole new audience and traffic source.
Some sites and 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, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Webmasters
(Google Search Console)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with important data, SEO tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site details, the information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details have been set up, you can add tracking information to WordPress via plugins and send data automatically to other online applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account and site details with Bing have been set up, your information can be used with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to grow a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your automated traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various 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 attract new traffic to your site.
You should have profiles set up with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, 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 setup and/or content syndication tools (we discuss some of these tools in greater detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online web platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
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 is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your account.
There are various solutions that can be added to your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
Configuring WordPress
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 of the important areas.
Global WordPress Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains an important and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As described below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have purposely configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services text area
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is listed …
(WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – 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 text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could affect 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 check box is ticked or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to automatically ping all the update services you have listed whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Settings Menu – 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow your site to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the ways permalink URLs can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
If you need help setting up permalinks, go here: Setting Up WordPress Permalinks
Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, web security is something you cannot ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to hackers and botnets.
To learn more, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages more indexable …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by making your site more search engine friendly)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find, classify and index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with members of their social networks can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing features to your website using free or inexpensive plugins)
There are many free or inexpensive social sharing plugins to choose from.
Most social sharing plugins let you specify which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress Traffic Generation Theme Settings – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, many themes also give you built-in options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to configure your settings and enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic Configuration – Other Don’t Forget These
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of business online, you need to ensure that your website complies with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
To learn more about the importance of having a compliant website, refer to this article:
Post Tags & Categories
Categories & post tags help search engines index your website, which improves traffic.
(Categories help to improve your site’s SEO, which improves traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s post categories and tags during the Website Planning Process.
When considering ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Add A Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites discover more of your website content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although Google will index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Page – Don’t Forget This!
When online visitors type in the wrong URL into their web browser or click on links pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they will typically be greeted with an error – page not found message …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do then to automatically begin bringing more traffic is add content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many website developers 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 addressed in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Section 3
To continue reading this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help small business owners learn how to grow their business and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress website and proven online marketing methods.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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