Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new visitors automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this series, we 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 is add fresh content regularly to automatically start generating traffic!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase of this process. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a website 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 two we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that new visitors will automatically start flowing simply by regularly publishing new content to your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Also, the business landscape is becoming so much more competitive worldwide and businesses are looking for any advantage they believe will help them get better results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage. With an expertly configured WordPress site, you have a flying start and a significant competitive advantage online.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s a simple way to describe the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Things are moving along in the gizmo assembly line when all machinery suddenly stops.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert heads straight towards the control box. After staring at the box for less than 3 minutes, the expert then produces a teensy-weensy little hammer and makes a very gentle tap near the left-hand corner of the control unit.
Immediately, the plant begins to work as before.
The manager is greatly overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Unable to contain his anger and bewilderment, the factory manager picks up the phone and rings the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them such an exorbitant fee for less than five minutes work, he then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives 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 consistently drive traffic to their sites.
How much money did the factory stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one in the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to demand fair compensation for years spent acquiring the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly assess and avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a website set up and configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other online properties would be automatically 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 website?)
While experts often make difficult solutions look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring some of the site settings for a client. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party services need to be set up to achieve specific outcomes
- Which options need to be configured in order to ensure that processes will work as expected, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. This is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring one or two plugins, configuring some options and settings in your dashboard area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of different parts such as your web server, your WordPress site, and a number of third-party sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas.
Your Server – Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your server specifically for handling 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 positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your business can attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like integrating server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
Once your server settings have been checked and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites and online services.
Configuring External Services
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all content will get published to a central location (your site) and from there, it will radiate outwards automatically to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external platforms to your traffic system, content with links pointing back to your website gets automatically added to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and business benefits from increased exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your settings to speed up the configuration process 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 site’s settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmasters)
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 essential information, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
Once your account and site data have been set up, use this information with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic performance, SEO, marketing efforts, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account, your account code can be added to all of your web pages in WordPress using plugins used with other applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account and entering site details with Bing Webmaster Tools, this information can be used with traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers website owners a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to build a professional online presence for your business.
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 at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic generation system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media 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 and social bookmarking accounts before you can 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 attract new visitors to your site.
Set up profiles with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are many social sites you can You can syndicate your content to many social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select those that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will cover some of these tools in greater detail in the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online technology 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 to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add an RSS feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse website.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your own web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress Configuration
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 of the important areas.
WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As stated below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have purposely chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services section
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(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 visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to get the rest of the content from a partial feed, 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 main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to automatically notify all the update services you have specified in the Update Services box when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(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 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 Section)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings enable your site to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings Section)
Here are some of the ways SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using WordPress permalinks here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that improve traffic generation
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
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, securing your site is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to hackers and bots.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving improving how search engines like Google and Bing find and index your web pages …
(SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your website’s ability to rank better in search engines)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your site’s SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to 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 GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with others online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your website easily using free or inexpensive plugins)
You can easily add social sharing buttons to your site using WordPress plugins.
Most social share plugins let you specify which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WP Theme Features
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, many themes also provide options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) allow you to configure settings for better traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your site is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure For Better Traffic Results
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do any kind of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?)
To learn more about how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website, refer to this article:
Post Categories & Post Tags
Post categories & tags help to improve your site’s SEO, which improves traffic.
(Post categories help search engines index your website, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s post categories and tags during the Website Planning Stage.
When configuring your website to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
Add A Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications discover more of your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. HTML site maps are web pages that provide visitors with a an understandable map of how your content is organized, whereas XML sitemaps are mostly just a bunch of code that only search engine bots can interpret. Although Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Your Site’s 404 Page Not Found
When visitors type in the wrong web address or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your site that no longer exists, they are presented with an error page …
(A 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up on your server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do to begin driving web traffic is publish content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different components and external web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The skills and knowledge involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many web professionals months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is addressed in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This article is part of an tutorial series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively using a WordPress website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
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