Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive traffic automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this article 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 site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to automatically begin attracting traffic is publish fresh content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your website was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we discuss the configuration phase of the traffic system. You will learn what makes an expertly configured site different. You will also learn just what type of work needs to be done to ensure that when all is fully set up and configured, you can attract new visitors automatically whenever you publish web content on your site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business getting so much more competitive, it’s worth exploring any and every opportunity you can to increase your own competitiveness online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage over other competitors. For businesses, an expertly configured website means having an immediate competitive advantage from the very beginning.
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 take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here’s one way to understand the differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence plus an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
Let me illustrate this point with a little story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All was going well in the widget assembly workshop when everything suddenly ground to a stop.
No one could figure out what happened and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and, without uttering a word, immediately walked to the control box. After staring silently at the wires and circuitry for about 2 minutes or less, the expert then produced a tiny hammer and made a very gentle tap about 2 inches from the right-hand side of the box.
Immediately, everything came back to life.
The plant manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The factory manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged so much for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice 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 new visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to ask to be compensated fairly for investing years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to quickly avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be automatically 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?)
Although the solution to many challenges is often ridiculously easy in hindsight, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to work things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services need to be set up to achieve desired outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured to make sure processes will run as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing a solution, configuring some settings in your admin area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your site, and a number of third-party sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine what’s involved in more detail.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your hosting account specifically for handling web traffic …
(In 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 traffic your site will attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both good and bad 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, setting up htaccess and error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting 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 is to configure various external sites and services.
3rd-Party Sites Configuration
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all content will get published from a central location (your site) and from there, it will get distributed automatically to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external sites to your network, content linked back to your website will get automatically posted to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and business will be given added exposure to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of these sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your settings 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 before configuring your WordPress site’s settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with useful information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account with Google Search Console are set up, use the information with traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data have been set up, traffic tracking information can be added to all of your pages in WordPress via a Google Analytics plugin used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account is with Bing are set up, you can use this information with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers both a self-hosted and a 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 features, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated 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 attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social 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 and social bookmarking accounts and get new traffic to your site.
You should have accounts with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we discuss some of these tools in more detail further below and in the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to many social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add a feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your social feed.
There are many different solutions you can incorporate into your own traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and often overlooked traffic notification system …
(WordPress 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 or your webmaster have intentionally configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(You can 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
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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
This section affects how visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or 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 traffic is concerned, however, the main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to instantly notify your update services list when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion Settings
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 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Permalinks enable your site to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the ways search-friendly URLS can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, see this step-by-step tutorial: Changing Your WordPress Permalinks
WordPress Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including 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. No blog is completely immune from a cyber-attack.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
For more information, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages more search engine friendly …
(WP Plugins For SEO – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, crawl and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed to Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with their own networks can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website using free or inexpensive plugins)
You can add social sharing buttons to your website easily with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social plugins let you choose which sites visitors can share your content 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 protect content or downloads which users can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress – Traffic Features In Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can 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 provide options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With many themes, adding social sharing features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(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 Flow
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle good and unwanted traffic but also for all the situations that can cause serious damage to your business when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online, you need to ensure that your site stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, go here:
WordPress Categories And Tags
WordPress post tags and categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your website.
(Categories help search engines index your website, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post categories and tags should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Process.
When configuring your website to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and categories that have been set up.
Visitor Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover more of your web content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although search engines like Google will index your site just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When online users type in the wrong web address or click on a dead hyperlink, they will normally be presented with a 404 error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
A 404 Not Found error page can be configured into a useful source of traffic to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do then to automatically drive web traffic is publish new content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different elements and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many website professionals months to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Part Three
To continue reading this article, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven online marketing methods.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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