Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new traffic automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is post new content consistently to begin bringing more traffic!)
In Part Two, we focused on the setup phase of the traffic automation process. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this section of the series, we discuss the configuration phase of the traffic blueprint. We will show you why an expertly configured WordPress site is different from a professionally configured website. You will also understand just what kind of work is required to make sure that when all is fully configured, new traffic will automatically start flowing when you add new content to your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business getting ever more competitive, it’s worth exploring any and every advantage that can help you get better results online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage over the competition. Having an expertly configured WordPress site gives your business an immediate 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 an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here is a simple way to understand the difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this point here is a joke.
A Semi-True Story …
All is running smoothly in the gizmo plant when production suddenly comes to a halt.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert heads out directly to the control box. After staring at the control unit for less than 3 minutes or so, the expert then produces a tiny little hammer from his tool belt and makes a gentle tap about one inch from the bottom-left side of the box.
Immediately, the machinery returns once more to normal.
The manager is filled with joy as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Furious, the manager rings the expert. Why have they had been charged such a ludicrous fee for less than 5 minutes work? He then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving visitors to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the business was able to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to get paid fairly for years spent acquiring the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to immediately assess and avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress website or blog configured so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social followers from Facebook and Twitter 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 driving traffic to your site?)
Although experts often make complex things look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than just installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed to add various functionalities to your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up to achieve desired results
- Which options you need to configure to make sure things work how you have envisioned, etc.
(Driving 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 complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing a solution, tweaking some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration phase is a process that involves your server, your web site, and a number of external sites and/or online services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these steps in more detail.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your webhosting account that affect how your site will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your business can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like configuring server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your server settings and configuring these, the next step is to set up and configure a number of third-party sites.
Configuring External Services
The idea behind adding external sites is that all content will be published from a central location (your site) and from there, it will get distributed automatically to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you incorporate these external sites into your setup, content linking back to your site is automatically posted to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social media accounts, even to users of the platform itself. Your content will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site to speed up the configuration process 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 Search Console
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of useful data, tools and reports about your website.
Once your account and site data with Google Webmasters are set up, this information can be used with traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account and site data, you can add tracking code to all of your pages in WordPress via a simple plugin and send data instantly to many other useful applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account with Bing Webmaster Tools, use the account information with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers users the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which a number of 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 traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need your social accounts set up before you can 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 accounts and drive new traffic to your site.
Set up accounts and profiles with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can set up and syndicate your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online technology platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute social content to social networks)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your own RebelMouse social feed.
There are many different platforms you can incorporate into your web traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website Or Blog For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress – Global Settings
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and frequently overlooked traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As described below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Writing Settings – WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section …
(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
***
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 influence web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or 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.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to instantly notify all the update services you have listed whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, do not check this box …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Section)
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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings Section)
The examples below show some of the ways your post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring Settings – Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including traffic generation.
Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No web site is completely safe from a cyber attack.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to attacks from hackers and botnets.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web content more indexable …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by improving your website’s ability to rank better in search engines)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your website’s SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to index, it also lets you 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 their friends and networks can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their website with WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to specify which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
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 give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes can be configured for improved traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing features to your pages is as easy as clicking a few buttons to enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic System – Additional Configuration
Last (but by no means least) in the configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and unwanted traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Legally Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, see this article:
WordPress Categories & Tags
Post categories and post tags help search engines better organize and index your website, which helps to increase traffic.
(Post categories help search engines index your pages, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and post categories should be set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
When configuring your web site to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal results.
Visitor Site Map
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications discover more of your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although search engines like Google can index your site just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When visitors searching online for your website type in the wrong web address or click on links pointing to pages on your website that no longer exist, they will normally be greeted with a 404 error page …
(A 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your web server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do to automatically begin bringing more web traffic is add web content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The skills and knowledge required to perform the configuration phase of the traffic automation process typically takes many web professionals a long time to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Section Three
To continue reading about this topic, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively using a WordPress website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
Subscribe To Our Site And Get Notified When New WordPress Tutorials Get Published!
***
"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya
***