Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this series, we provided an overview of 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 blog, all you have to do to automatically begin bringing more traffic is add content regularly!)
In Part Two, we looked at 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 website, and what to do if your website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this article, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic system. We will explain what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different, and just what kind of work needs to be done to make sure that when everything is set up and fully configured, you will begin bringing visitors automatically simply by adding fresh content to your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With business becoming increasingly more competitive worldwide, it’s worth learning about every opportunity you can to increase your own competitiveness online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage over other competitors. Having an expertly configured WordPress site gives you a significant competitive advantage from the very beginning.
The Difference Is In The Configuration Stage
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 understand the key 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 with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is additional labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a joke.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything was moving along in the gizmo plant when things suddenly stopped.
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 immediately towards the main control box. After staring silently at the wiring board for about 3 minutes or less, the expert then took out a teeny-weeny hammer from his utility belt and made a single tap near the right-hand edge of the box.
Immediately, everything returned to normal.
The plant manager was filled with joy as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager received a request of payment for services rendered for the sum of $5,000.
The manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why the expert had charged them such a ludicrous fee for so little time delivering such minimal amount of work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrived in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic consistently to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the machines stopped working and no one in the business was able to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to ask to be compensated fairly for investing years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to quickly avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a web site configured so all you have to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other traffic-generating 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 attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems is often ridiculously simple in hindsight, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to add various functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party services need to be set up to achieve desired outcomes
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to ensure that processes will run how you have envisioned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing a solution, clicking on a button or two … it’s all of this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of different parts including your server, your site, and a number of external sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine these areas in more detail.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about configuring settings in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your website can attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwanted traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like integrating spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After your server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites or online services.
External Sites
The purpose of adding external sites is that all content should be posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After incorporating these external services into your traffic system, content linked back to your site is automatically syndicated to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and website will receive increased exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.
Some of the external sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings to 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 Search Console
(Google Search Console)
Google Search Console lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of useful information, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
Once your account and site data are set up, use the details with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add tracking information to all of your pages in WordPress via plugins and send data instantly to many other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account, your details can be used with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers both the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to build a professional online presence.
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 Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social media and social bookmarking accounts before you can 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 and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have profiles set up with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick those that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we will review some of these tools in more detail during the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add a feed from your WordPress site …
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 website.
There are various solutions that can be incorporated into your web traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Global Settings
By default, your WordPress dashboard area includes a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains an important and frequently overlooked traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services section
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can 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
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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 visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website to read 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 your traffic system is concerned, however, the main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically notify all the update services you have listed whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings)
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 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 Section)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings enable WordPress to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks Section)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your site’s post permalinks …
(Configuring permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Configuring WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic to your site
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is completely immune from cyber attacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to attacks from hackers and bots.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins help increase traffic by making your site more search engine friendly)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing features to your site using WordPress plugins)
You can add social sharing buttons to your website easily with WordPress plugins.
Most social share plugins let you choose which 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 likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which users can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
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 the design and layout of your site, some themes also include built-in options for improving SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a free theme) allow you to configure options and settings for better traffic results)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic Automation – Other Features To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in visitor 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 begin to visit your website.
If you are making money online, it’s important that your site complies with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
WordPress Post Categories And Tags
Post tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your web pages.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your website.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s post categories and tags should be set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories you have set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications find more of your website content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although Google will index your pages 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 can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Forget This!
When visitors searching online for your site enter the wrong web address or click on hyperlinks pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they are presented with an error page (known as a 404 Not Found page) …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your web server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to start generating web traffic is add fresh content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise required to perform this phase of the traffic automation process can take some website professionals months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive tutorial series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively using a WordPress-powered website and proven web marketing methods.
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