Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive visitors automatically to your site using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to automatically drive more traffic is publish fresh content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase. 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 website, and what to do if your site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic system. We explain what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different from a professionally configured one, and just what kind of work is required to make sure that when everything is fully set up and configured, visitors will automatically start flowing as you begin to post new content on your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Also, the business landscape is becoming so much more competitive on a global scale and businesses are researching any advantage available to increase their competitiveness online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a huge advantage. Having an expertly configured website gives your business a significant advantage from the very start.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
There is a 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 can offer you.
Here’s a simple way to explain the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence plus an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
Allow me to illustrate this point with an amusing story.
A Semi-True Story …
Everything is going just fine in the widget plant when things grind to a sudden stop.
As no one can figure out what’s happened, the plant manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrives and, without uttering a word, walks straight towards the control box. After staring silently at the box for less than 2 minutes, the expert then produces a teeny-weeny little hammer from his tool belt and makes a single tap about one inch from the top-right side of the box.
Immediately, the whole workshop lights up and comes back to life.
The plant manager is filled with joy as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Furious, the factory manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged so much for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The #1 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 gizmo factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to ask to be compensated fairly for years spent developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately fix a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress 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 web 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?)
While experts often make complicated situations and problems look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to figure things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to add various functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party services you need to set up and activate to achieve certain outcomes
- Which options need to be configured to ensure that everything works as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved and time-consuming. This is because it’s not as easy as installing one or two plugins, clicking a button, or configuring some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many parts such as your server, your website, and a number of third-party sites or online services …
(The configuration stage 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 like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine these steps.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings in your web server specifically for handling all 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 beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic you will attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites and/or online services.
Configuring External Sites
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all of your content gets published to a central location (your site) and from there, it syndicates automatically to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external services have been added to your configuration, content pointing back to your site will be automatically fed to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and website will be exposed to a new audience and new sources of traffic.
Some of the external sites and online solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to help speed up the configuration process 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 site’s settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of useful information, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site data with Google Webmasters have been set up, the account information can be used to automate web traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, marketing campaigns, 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 traffic monitoring code to WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data automatically to various other applications and web properties.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account and site details with Bing have been set up, you can use your details with web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers website owners the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional web presence.
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 show you how to integrate this into your automated traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need your social media accounts set up in order to 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.
You should have accounts and pages set up with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we will review some of these tools in more detail when we discuss the Automation phase).
(There are loads of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your page.
There are various sites and platforms you can incorporate into your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
Configuring Your WordPress Site
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
Your WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(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 specifically configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section displays only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(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 readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to read 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 in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly notify various update services when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search engines 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the options for configuring your permalink URLs …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have created a detailed tutorial about using permalinks in WordPress here: Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality to your site, including traffic generation.
Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what kind 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 website or blog.
(Security Plugins stop 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 for more details:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web content easy for search engines to index …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by improving your site’s SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find, crawl and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with others can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you provide content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website with WordPress plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to select which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which users can unlock by sharing your page.
WP Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for improved traffic results)
With many themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic – Other Important Aspects To Consider
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic blueprint configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwanted traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of business online, it’s important that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, go here:
Tags & Categories
Post categories and tags help to improve your site’s SEO, which improves traffic.
(Categories help search engines index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and post categories should be discussed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
When looking at ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags you have set up.
Add A Site Map
A site map that displays all of your posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools find your online content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, while an XML sitemap is code that only search bots can interpret. Although Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Another Source Of Traffic!
When visitors searching online for your site enter the wrong web address or click on an invalid link, they are presented with a 404 Not Found error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
A 404 Error Page can redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up on your server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your website fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do is publish web content regularly to begin bringing more web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise required to perform the configuration stage of the traffic automation process typically takes many website developers a long time to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is explained in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven online marketing methods.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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