Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your site into an automated traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS.
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 generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is add content consistently to automatically begin attracting more web traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to get started 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 site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will discuss the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. We will help you understand what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different than a professionally configured website, and how much work needs to be done to ensure that when everything is fully set up and configured, you can automatically begin attracting traffic simply by regularly posting content on your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive worldwide and are exploring any opportunity they can to improve their performance online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand is a huge competitive advantage. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website means having a significant 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 a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here is a simple way to understand the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does it take additional labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing anecdote.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All is going well in the gizmo-making factory when the machinery suddenly comes to a halt.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the manager decides to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert walks directly towards the control box. After staring at the control unit for less than 2 minutes or so, the expert then takes out a little hammer and makes a single tap about 1 cm from the left-hand corner of the unit.
Immediately, everything returns once again to normal.
The manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager receives a request of payment for services for the sum of $5,000.
Furious, the factory manager picks up the phone and rings the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged so much for less than five minutes 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 visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget 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 the right to demand fair compensation for having spent years developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WP web site set up and configured so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other web properties would be immediately 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 the solution to many problems is often ridiculously simple once implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring settings for clients. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services need to be set up and activated to achieve specific results
- Which options need to be configured to make sure things will function to plan, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite involved and complicated. This is because it’s not as simple as installing a piece of software, clicking a button … it’s all of this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web server, your web site, and various 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 showing the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for website installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your web-hosting account specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic you will attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for both good and unwanted traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like integrating spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to configure a number of external sites and/or online services.
External Web Properties & Accounts – Configuration
The basic idea of adding external sites is that all content should be posted to one central location (your site) and from there, syndicate automatically to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external platforms into your configuration, content with links pointing back to your website will get automatically posted to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and business will be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the external 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, here are just some of the accounts you will need to have set up:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmasters lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of useful information, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site details with Google, this information can be used to automate traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s performance, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data are set up, traffic tracking code can be added to WordPress using a plugin and and sent to various other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account, the information can be used with traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your traffic system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need to set up your social media 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 drive new visitors to your site.
Set up accounts and profile pages with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(You can syndicate your content to many social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary 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 blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse page.
There are various solutions that can be incorporated into your web traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external services, 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 correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
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 or your webmaster have specifically configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 Settings
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 influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users 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 website or blog to read 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 most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to ping various update services whenever 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 …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion
Although this section is mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to sites 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings Screen)
Here are some of the ways your search-friendly URLS can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
We have created a detailed tutorial about using WP permalinks here: Improve Your WordPress SEO With SEO-Friendly URLs
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality to your site, including traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic 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. No site is completely immune from being targeted.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to hackers and bots.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving improving how search engines find and index your web pages …
(Yoast SEO – WP Plugins For SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google and Bing 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 easily share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website with WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins let you specify which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which users can unlock by liking your page.
WP Traffic Features In Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, some themes also provide built-in options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure settings and options for better traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Features For Traffic Results
Last (but by no means least) in the WordPress traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of business online, you need to ensure that your website complies with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?)
To learn more about the importance of having a compliant website, go here:
Categories And Post Tags
Post categories and tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your web pages.
(Post categories help search engines index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your website’s categories and tags during the Website Planning Stage.
When looking at ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and categories you have set up.
Add A Site Map
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications discover your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although Google will index your pages 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.
404 Page – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When visitors searching online for your site enter the wrong URL or click on hyperlinks pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they are greeted with a 404 error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
A 404 page can be configured to funnel visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do is post great content regularly to begin attracting more web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some web professionals a long time to acquire.
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 covered in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Section 3
To continue reading this article, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help website owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively and drive traffic organically with a WordPress website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy and quick to implement.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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