Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to automatically start generating new traffic is add new content on a regular basis!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the blueprint. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your site was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured to bring new visitors automatically when you start to post new content to your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as their greatest challenge online. With business getting so much more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth learning about every opportunity you can to get better results online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage. With an expertly configured website, your business has a flying start as soon as your site is launched.
The Configuration Process Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to describe the difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does it take more work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing story.
A Semi-True Story …
Everything was humming along in the gizmo-making workshop when things came to a sudden stop.
No one could figure out what was wrong and so the manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
The expert arrived shortly after being summoned and, without uttering a word, immediately went towards the control box. After staring silently at the board for 5 minutes or so, the expert then produced a tiny hammer from his tool belt and made a very gentle tap about one inch from the right edge of the unit.
Immediately, the plant came back to life.
The manager was grateful and relieved as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager received a request of payment for services for $5,000.
The factory manager called the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay such an exorbitant fee for less than 5 minutes work and promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to be compensated fairly for having invested years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP site fully set up so all you have to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other traffic-generating online 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.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which third-party services need to be set up and activated to get specific outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure to make sure things function as planned, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. This is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a piece of software, configuring some settings in your admin area … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your website or blog, and various external sites or online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we create a simplified diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings and options in your web server that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, 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 traffic your business may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like integrating spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
Once your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step is to set up and configure various third-party sites and services.
External Services
The concept behind adding external sites is that all of your content will be posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external sites have been added to your traffic network, content pointing back to your website will get automatically syndicated to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and business will be given added exposure to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of the third-party sites and solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to help 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, tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site details with Google Webmasters, use this information with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your account, you can add traffic monitoring information to all of your pages in WordPress via plugins and feed data instantly to many other online applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account, your information can be used with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers users the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your automated web traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and get new traffic to your site)
You will need to set up your various social media and social bookmarking accounts in order to integrate these with your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site.
Set up accounts and profile pages with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to 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 users can follow your page.
There are various sites and platforms you can incorporate into your own traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site
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.
Global Settings – WordPress
By default, WordPress includes a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most important and often overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services section
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section includes only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 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, choosing to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your site 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 most important setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to notify various update services whenever new posts get 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 …
(WordPress Settings – 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 sites linked to from your posts, 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)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks enable WordPress to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
If you need help setting up permalinks, see this step-by-step tutorial: Changing Your WordPress Permalinks
Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every type of functionality to your site, including traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can improve traffic generation
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is safe from a cyber-attack.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to hackers and bots.
Go here for more details:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages more search engine friendly …
(WP Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your website’s SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing to your site using WordPress plugins)
There are many free or inexpensive social sharing plugins to choose from.
Many social plugins allow you to select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which users can unlock by sharing your page.
Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring design and layout elements of your website, many themes also provide options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for better 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 button …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic – Additional Configuration Steps
Last (but by no means least) in the configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Website Compliance 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 things that can go wrong as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you do business online, it’s important that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
WordPress Tags & Post Categories
Categories and tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your website.
(Post categories help search engines index your website, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s categories and tags earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
When considering ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits.
Add A Site Map
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, 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 two different things. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Configure Your 404 Error Page
When visitors searching for your website type in the wrong web address or click on links pointing to pages on your site that no longer exist, they are presented with a 404 page …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
A 404 page can be configured into a useful source of traffic to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your web server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do is post content regularly to automatically attract traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of various elements and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of skills and knowledge involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some web professionals months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is addressed in the next article in our WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read more, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business and drive traffic sustainably with a WordPress website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
Would You Like To Get Notified When New WordPress Tutorials Get Published? Then Subscribe Using The Form Below!
***
"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
***