Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your website into an automated traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to attract new web traffic is publish web content regularly!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will discuss the configuration phase of this process. We will help you understand what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different. You will also discover just what kind of work needs to be done to make sure that when everything is set up and fully configured, new web traffic will automatically start flowing when you start to add content on your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business becoming so much more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth learning about any advantage that can help you increase your own competitiveness online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage over other competitors. Having an expertly configured WordPress site gives you an immediate competitive advantage from the word “go”.
The Configuration Process Is What Makes The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s one way to explain the key difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take more labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
Let me illustrate this point with a joke.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All is going fine in the gizmo-making plant when things suddenly stops.
As no one can figure out what’s happened, the manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
The expert arrives soon afterward and immediately heads to the control box. After staring at the box for less than 3 minutes or so, the expert then takes out a teensy-weensy hammer from his pocket and makes a single tap about 1 inch from the right edge of the box.
Immediately, the machinery comes back to life.
The manager is greatly relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Outraged and furious, the manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged so much for less than 5 minutes work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving visitors to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the machines stopped working and no one on the factory floor was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to ask to be compensated fairly for spending years developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to immediately avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your website set up so all you ever had to do is publish new content and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other web properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
While the solution to many problems often seems ridiculously easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party services need to be set up to get certain outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure in order to ensure that things work as expected, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved. It’s not just about installing a solution, clicking a couple of buttons, or tweaking some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of a number of different parts such as your server, your website, and a number of third-party sites and online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If the activities involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a better look at what’s involved.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes. What we are talking about, is tweaking settings in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your website may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwanted traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like implementing spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to configure various third-party sites and online services.
3rd-Party Services
The basic concept of choosing external sites is that all of your content gets published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it then gets distributed automatically to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external services to your traffic system, content linking back to your site will be automatically syndicated to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social sites, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your business will then be given exposure to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of these third-party sites will need to be 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, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmasters lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with useful data, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site details with Google Webmasters have been set up, you can use this information to automate web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrals, etc.
After setting up your account, you can add tracking code to all of your pages in WordPress using a simple plugin and feed data instantly to various other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account and site details are set up, use the information to automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress provides users with a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social media and social bookmarking accounts set up in order to 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 get new visitors to your site.
You should set up accounts and profile pages with all of the big 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 pick the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we will cover some of these tools in more detail further below and in the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to many social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, 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 – Distribute your content to social networks)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse account.
There are various sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your own traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global WordPress Settings
The WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As described below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have purposely configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services section
By default, this section displays only one entry …
(Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 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 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 site to view 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 most important setting here 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 WordPress to automatically ping all the update services you have specified in the Update Services box whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
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 content, 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)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your permalink URLs …
(Configuring permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, go here: Setting Up Your WordPress Permalinks
WordPress Plugins – Configuration
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to bring more visitors to your site
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is completely immune from cyber-attacks.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to hackers and bots.
For more information, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your site more search engine friendly …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your website’s SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with members of their social communities can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website using WordPress plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins to choose from.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to choose 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 shares), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which users can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress Traffic Generation Theme Settings – Configuration
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 layout and design aspects of your website, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes allow you to configure settings and options for improved traffic results)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing features to your pages is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons and enabling the feature …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Configuring Other WordPress Features
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and bad 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 (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your site complies with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?)
We have written a detailed article on why it’s important to have a legally compliant website here:
Post Categories & Post Tags
Post tags and categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your website.
(WordPress post categories help search engines classify and index your web pages, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s post tags and post categories should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages 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. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just using 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.
Configure Your Site’s 404 Page
When online users enter the wrong URL into their browser or click on a dead hyperlink, they will normally be presented with an error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website or blog has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do then is post new content regularly to bring more web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different components and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform this stage of the traffic automation process can take many web professionals months to acquire.
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 article in the WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online using a WordPress website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
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