Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is post fresh content consistently to automatically generate web traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase. 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 website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic system. The focus of this section is to help you understand what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different than a professionally configured one. You will also understand how much work is required to ensure that when all is fully configured, web traffic will automatically start flowing just by posting content on a regular basis on your website.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive and are exploring any and every advantage they believe will get better results online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can be a huge competitive advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off to a flying start from the moment their site is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here’s a simple way to understand the differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
Allow me to illustrate this point with a story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Things are moving along in the widget factory when all of a sudden, the machinery comes to a halt.
As no one can figure out what’s happened, the manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
The expert arrives shortly after being summoned and, without uttering a word, heads out immediately to the main control box. After staring silently at the wiring diagrams for 5 minutes, the expert then produces a teensy-weensy little hammer and makes a single tap near the right corner of the unit.
Immediately, the machinery starts working as before.
The floor manager is greatly overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager receives an invoice for $5,000.
Bewildered to the point of feeling outrage, the factory manager rings the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged 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, a bill of payment arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for having invested years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WP blog set up so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social media and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be automatically 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?)
Although the solution to many problems can seem ridiculously simple in hindsight, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to figure things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than just installing a website and configuring settings for clients. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts you need to set up and activate to achieve specific results
- Which settings you need to configure in order to ensure that things will work how you expect, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite involved. This is because it’s not as easy as installing a plugin, clicking a button … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your website or blog, and a number of external sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simplified diagram of the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these steps.
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 tweaking settings in your web-hosting account specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your business may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like integrating spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to configure various third-party sites and services.
External Sites And Services – Configuration
The basic concept of choosing external sites is that all content should be posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external services have been added to your network, content pointing back to your site gets automatically posted to these platforms. Your website will be given exposure to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the external sites and online services will need to be 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 Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of important information, tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your Google Webmaster Tools account and entering site details, you can use your account information to integrate and automate traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
After setting up your account and site details, you can add traffic tracking code to WordPress using a plugin and send data automatically to many other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account, use this information to automate web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers users a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your automated traffic system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social media and social bookmarking accounts in order to configure these as part of your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and bring new visitors to your site.
Set up accounts and profile pages with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can You can syndicate your content to loads of social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
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 a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your social feed.
There are various platforms that can be added to your own traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up third-party site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress dashboard area includes a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains an important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, this section contains only one entry …
(WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(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 your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to read the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting here as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically ping various update services when new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Section)
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 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings Screen)
Here are some of the ways your post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
For a detailed tutorial on setting up permalinks, go here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to attract more visitors to your site
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is safe from cyberattacks.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to hackers and bots.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web content easier for search engines to index …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with others can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social features to their website with WordPress plugins.
Most social sharing plugins let you 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 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.
Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure settings for improved traffic results)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic Configuration – Other Areas
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the situations that can damage your business as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you do business online, you need to make sure that your website remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article about how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your site here:
Tags & Categories
Post categories & tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your web pages.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your web pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s categories and tags should be set up during the Website Planning Phases.
When configuring your website or blog to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post 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 posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools find more of 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. Although Google can index your site just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your 404 Error Page
When online visitors type in the wrong URL into their browser or click on links pointing to pages on your website that no longer exist, they are presented with an error – page not found message …
(A 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up in your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your website fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do then to automatically begin bringing new web traffic is publish fresh content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform this process typically takes some website developers a long time to learn.
Once you have 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 the WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To continue reading about this topic, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help you learn how to grow your business online with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven web marketing strategies.
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