Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic generation machine using WordPress.
In Part One of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to automatically begin attracting more traffic is add content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we focused on critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section, we will discuss the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. We explain how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that traffic will automatically start flowing just by consistently posting content on your website.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business becoming ever more competitive worldwide, it’s worth learning about any and every advantage available to increase your own competitiveness online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage. An expertly configured website gives your business a flying start as soon as your site is launched.
The Configuration Phase Is What Makes All The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to understand the main difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing story.
Knowing Where To Tap
Things were going well in the gizmo assembly line when suddenly, everything ceased working.
No one could figure out what happened and so the floor manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert headed out directly to the control box. After staring at the control unit for no more than 5 minutes or so, the expert then took out a tiny hammer and made a gentle tap about three cm from the right-hand side of the control unit.
Immediately, the plant started working once again.
The manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received a request of payment for services rendered for the amount of $5,000.
The factory manager picked up the phone and dialled the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay such an exorbitant fee for less than five minutes work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic consistently to their sites.
How much money did the widget plant stand to lose when production 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 demand fair compensation for having spent years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your website fully set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and search engines, social followers from sites like Facebook and LinkedIn and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
Although the solution to many challenges is often ridiculously simple in hindsight, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring some of the site settings for a client. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up and activated to get certain results
- Which settings you need to configure in order to make sure everything will function the way you expect, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite involved and time-consuming. This is because it’s not as simple as installing a piece of software, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of many different components including your web hosting server, your site, and a number of third-party sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for website installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings and options in your webhosting account specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic you can attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like integrating server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step is to configure various third-party sites.
External Web Properties & Services – Configuration
The idea behind choosing external sites is that all of your content should be published from one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will automatically be syndicated to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external sites have been added to your setup, content with links pointing back to your site gets automatically published on search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and site will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some third-party web properties and online services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress 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 Search Console
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site data, this information can be used to automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, you can add tracking code to all of your web pages in WordPress using a simple plugin and feed data instantly to other online applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account and entering site data, use your account information with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers website owners the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to grow a professional web presence.
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 these features into your automated web traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(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 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 and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have accounts set up with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can You can syndicate your content to loads of social sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(There are loads of social sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add a feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your page.
There are various solutions that can be added to your web traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress Configuration
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 of the important points.
Global Settings – WordPress
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As described in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services section
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is available …
(WordPress 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 readers 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 content 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 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.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Generally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly notify various update services whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
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 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow your site to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways your permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, go here: Changing Your WordPress Permalinks
Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is completely safe from cyberattacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bots and hackers.
Go here for more info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your site’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines to find, classify and index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their website using WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site using free or inexpensive 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 default post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring Settings – WordPress Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, many themes also give you options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) can be configured for improved traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure For Better Traffic
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system 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 website for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do business online, you need to ensure that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help understanding the importance of having a legally compliant website, refer to this article:
WordPress Post Tags And Categories
Tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your pages.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your website.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your site’s post tags and post categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites find your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. HTML site maps are web pages that link to all other content on your site and provide readers with a an understandable representation of how your content is structured, whereas XML sitemaps are mostly filled with code that only search engines can interpret. Although Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Another Source Of Web Traffic!
When visitors searching online for your site type in the wrong URL or click on hyperlinks pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they are greeted with an error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found page)
A 404 page can redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then is post content consistently to start generating new web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some web professionals a long time to learn.
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 explained in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read more, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive tutorial series aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business online and drive traffic sustainably with a WordPress-powered website and proven web marketing methods.
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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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