Tag: Increase Web Traffic

Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using WordPress.

In Part One of this series, we 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 add new content on a regular basis to attract more web traffic!)

In Part Two, we discussed 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 website, and what to do if your site was built with 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 phase of this process. We will show you how a WordPress site should be configured to bring web traffic automatically as you start posting web content on your web site.

WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase

Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With competition becoming progressively tougher businesses are exploring any opportunity they can to improve their results online.

Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage over other competitors. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start from the moment their website is launched.

Configuration Is The Difference

There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.

Here is a simple way to explain the difference:

An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence with online business marketing automation!

(An expertly configured site gives you a professional 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 type of expert knowledge.

Let’s illustrate this with a story.

A True Story (Kind Of) …

All was going fine in the gizmo-making plant when all machinery suddenly ground to a complete stop.

As no one could figure out what happened, the floor manager decided to call in an expert.

The expert arrived within the hour and, without uttering a word, walked immediately towards the control box. After staring silently at the box for what seemed like 2 minutes or less, the expert then took out a little hammer from his utility belt and made a single tap near the left-hand edge of the unit.

Immediately, the plant returned once again to normal.

The plant manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.

A few days later, the manager received a bill for $5,000.

The factory manager rang back the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged so much for less than 5 minutes work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.

The next day, a bill of payment arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:

The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive visitors to their sites.

In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when production stopped working and no one on the factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for investing years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately assess and avert a crisis?

Similarly, if you could have your WP blog configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would you save?

(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)

While the solution to many problems often seems quite simple in hindsight, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.

Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring some basic settings. 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 third-party accounts you need to set up to get specific outcomes
• Which options you need to configure in order to ensure that processes will run as expected, etc.

(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)

This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved and complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing and configuring a solution, clicking a couple of buttons, or configuring some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and much more.

Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your web hosting server, your WordPress site, and a number of third-party sites …

(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 like this …

(A simplistic flowchart of the activities involved in the configuration process)

Let’s take a look at what’s involved in more detail.

Web Hosting

We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is configuring settings in your web server that affect how you will handle web traffic …

(During the configuration phase, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)

Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your website may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.

This stage 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 server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up 404 redirections, etc …

(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)

Once your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and/or online services.

3rd-Party Accounts

The idea behind adding external sites is that all of your content is posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it radiates outwards automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.

Once these external services have been added to your traffic network, content linked back to your site gets automatically syndicated to these platforms. Your content and site will receive exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.

Some sites and online services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site 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 before configuring your WordPress settings:

Google Webmaster Tools

(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 important information, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.

Once your Google Webmaster Tools account has been set up, use this information with traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.

Google Analytics

(Google Analytics)

Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrers, etc.

Once your Google Analytics account and site details have been set up, you can add tracking code to all of your web pages in WordPress via a plugin and send data instantly to many other online applications.

Bing Data And Tools

(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)

Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account and site data are set up, use your information with traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.

WordPress.com

(WordPress.com)

As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers both a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional business presence online.

WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your web traffic system in the next installment of this series.

Social Media Sites

(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and attract new visitors to your site)

You will need your social accounts set up 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 pages and attract new traffic to your site.

Make sure you have accounts and profiles set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.

There are many social sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick the ones that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we discuss some of these tools in greater detail during the Automation phase).

(There are lots of social sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)

Additional Services, RSS Aggregators, Etc.

There are a number of online platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. 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 an RSS feed from your WordPress site …

RebelMouse

(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)

RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own RebelMouse social feed.

There are various solutions that can be added to your web 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 server settings and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.

WordPress Traffic Configuration

The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.

Let’s go over some of the important areas.

WordPress – Global Settings

Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …

(WordPress settings menu)

General Settings

Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …

(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)

Writing

The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and frequently overlooked traffic notification system …

(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)

As described in this section,

When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …

Unless you or your webmaster have intentionally chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services text area

With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is available …

(WordPress Update Services)

WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section …

(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 have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content shows up 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 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.

The most important setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.

Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically ping your list of update services when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unticked …

(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Section)

Discussion

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 …

(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)

Permalinks

Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …

(Global Settings – Permalink Settings Screen)

The examples below show some of the ways site’s permalinks can be configured …

(Configuring permalinks)

We have created a detailed tutorial about using permalinks in WordPress here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO

Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings

WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.

Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples

Blog Defender

Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your sites.

(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)

Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to hackers and botnets.

More info:

• Blog Defender Security Plugin

WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO

SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO …

(WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your site more search engine friendly)

A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also lets you specify how to display your content to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.

WordPress Social Plugins

Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with members of their own social communities can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you provide content that adds value to readers.

(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site with WordPress plugins)

WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.

Most social 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 plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which visitors can unlock by liking your page.

WordPress – Themes

As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.

For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, some themes also include built-in options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …

(Many themes include built-in traffic optimization features)

With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing features to your content is as easy as clicking a button …

(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)

Configuring Other Areas Of WordPress For Improved Traffic Flow

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.

These include the following:

Legal Web Pages

Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people begin to visit your website.

If you do any kind of business online, you need to make sure that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies.

(Is Your Website Compliant?)

To learn more about why it’s important to have a compliant website, go here:

• The Importance Of Having A Legally Compliant Website

Post Tags & Categories

Post categories and tags help to improve your site’s search optimization, which helps to increase traffic.

(Categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your pages.)

As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s post categories and tags during the Website Planning Phase.

In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags you have set up.

Add A WordPress Site Map

A visitor site map that displays all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools discover more of your website content …

(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)

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 is mostly filled with code that only search engine bots can understand. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just from 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.

Don’t Forget Your WordPress 404 Page

When visitors enter the wrong web address or click on a dead hyperlink, they are greeted with a 404 error page …

(A WordPress 404 Page)

Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect 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 page can be set up on your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.

WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary

Once you have your WordPress site fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do to automatically start generating web traffic is post content regularly.

The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different components and external web properties …

(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)

The kind of expertise required to perform the configuration process typically takes some web developers a long time to learn.

Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as can be automated. This step is explained in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.

This is the end of Part 3

To read more, click here:

• Web Site Traffic Blueprint Part 4 – A Complete Guide To Generating More Web Visitors For Your Business Automatically

This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help website owners learn how to grow their business and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.

Get Notified When New Tutorials Are Published – Subscribe Using The Form Below!

***

***