Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is publish content regularly to automatically bring more traffic!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase. 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 using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site so you can get new traffic automatically just by consistently publishing new content to your website.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as their greatest challenge online. Also, the business landscape is becoming so much more competitive and businesses are researching every advantage available to increase their competitiveness online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage over the competition. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start as soon as their website is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to explain the difference:
With a WordPress website 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 an automated online business marketing system!)
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.
Let’s illustrate this with a joke.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Everything is humming along in the gizmo-making manufacturing plant when things come to a sudden stop.
As no one can figure out what’s happened, the floor manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert walks immediately towards the control box. After staring at the circuit board for 3 minutes, the expert then produces a tiny hammer from his tool belt and makes a very gentle tap about 3 inches from the bottom-right side of the control unit.
Immediately, every machine springs to life again.
The plant manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager receives an invoice for $5,000.
Outraged and furious, the manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive traffic consistently to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to be compensated fairly for having invested years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to assess and avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your website or blog set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other online properties would be instantly 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 site?)
While the solution to many challenges may seem quite easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to figure things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring a few settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party services need to be set up to achieve certain outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured in order to make sure everything will work as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved and time-consuming. This is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a plugin, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many parts such as your server, your WP site, and various third-party sites and online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If the activities involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these areas.
Your Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for website installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about configuring settings in your server that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your business will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like integrating spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites and online services.
External Services
The basic idea of choosing external sites is that all of your content will be published to a central location (your site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external services have been added to your network, content linked back to your website is automatically fed to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social sites, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your site receives added exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.
Some web properties and online solutions will need to be 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, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmasters lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with useful information, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site details, you can use the information with web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details have been set up, you can add tracking information to all of your pages in WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data instantly to other online applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account and site details are set up, use the account information to automate web traffic settings 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 a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated web traffic system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media accounts in order to 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 visitors to your site.
Set up accounts and profile pages with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can syndicate your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick those that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we cover some of these tools in more detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging web platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add a feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute your content to social networks)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your own RebelMouse account.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications you can add to your web traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Configuring WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress dashboard area includes a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains an important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – 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 specifically chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section includes only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(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
***
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 influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to get the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as your traffic system is concerned, however, the most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to instantly notify your list of update services when new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Global 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 blogs 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)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your permalink URLs …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
If you need help setting up WordPress permalinks, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to attract more visitors to your site
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is guaranteed immunity from being attacked by hackers.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
For more information, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help increase traffic by improving your website’s SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, crawl and index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing buttons to your site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily using WordPress plugins.
Most social share plugins let you choose which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to protect content which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, some themes also provide built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your content is as easy as clicking a few buttons to configure your options and enable the function …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure For Increased Traffic
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both bad and good 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 commercial activity online, it’s important that your site is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
To learn more about how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website, go here:
Categories & Tags
WordPress post tags and categories help search engines index your web pages, which improves traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your website’s categories and tags during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits.
A Site Map Of Your Pages and Posts
A site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover more of your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, while an XML sitemap contains code that only search bots can interpret. Although Google can index your site just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Forget To Configure This Too!
When visitors searching for your site type in the wrong web address or click on links pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they will normally be greeted with a 404 error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your web server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website or blog has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do to begin attracting web traffic is post new content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different components and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration process typically takes some website professionals 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 Automation System series.
This is the end of Section 3
To continue reading about this topic, click here:
This tutorial is part of an tutorial series aimed at helping business owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively and drive traffic organically with a WordPress website or blog and proven web marketing strategies.
Subscribe Using The Form Below And Get Notified Of New WordPress Tutorials!
***
"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
***