Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is add new content on a consistent basis to automatically start generating web traffic!)
In Part Two, we focused on the setup phase of the automation process. We helped you understand 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 site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured to start getting new visitors automatically simply by adding new content on a consistent basis on your website.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – 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 competition making business survival increasingly more difficult businesses are researching every advantage available to improve their results and performance online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage over other competitors. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the very beginning.
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 a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here is a simple way to describe the key difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Allow me to illustrate this with an amusing anecdote.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Things are humming along in the gizmo assembly factory when suddenly, everything grounds to a halt.
No one can figure out what’s wrong and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert.
The expert arrives shortly after being summoned and, without saying a word, heads out immediately to the main control box. After staring silently at the wiring board for no more than 5 minutes, the expert then produces a teeny-weeny hammer and makes a very gentle tap near the left side of the box.
Immediately, the plant comes back to life.
The manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager receives a request of payment for services for the sum of $5,000.
Confused and outraged, the factory manager dials the expert. Why were they expected to pay such an exorbitant fee for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work? He then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice 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.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to demand fair compensation for years spent developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to assess and avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WP site fully configured so all you had to do is publish new content and search engines, social networks and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your site?)
Although the solution to many challenges can seem quite simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to work things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up and activated to achieve certain outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured in order to make sure things function as planned, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite involved and time-consuming. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a plugin, clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of different parts such as your web server, your site, and a number of third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website 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 simplistic flowchart of the configuration process)
Let’s examine these steps.
Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings in your web server that affect how you will handle 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 can attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like configuring server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites and services.
External Web Properties And Accounts – Configuration
The concept behind setting up external sites is that all of your content is posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it then gets automatically distributed to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external services have been added to your system, content with links pointing back to your site will get automatically fed to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your website will be given exposure to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some web properties and online solutions 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:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of important data, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account is set up, you can use the account information with traffic-related settings and notifications 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 activities, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account, visitor tracking code can be added to all web pages in WordPress using a simple plugin used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account is with Bing have been set up, you can use the details to automate traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers users the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated web traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media pages and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media accounts before you can configure these as part of 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 bring new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have accounts and profiles set up with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can You can syndicate your content to loads of social sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add an RSS feed from your WordPress blog …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own 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 would like to explore some of these and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure WordPress.
Configuring WordPress
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 points.
Global Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains an important and frequently overlooked traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Section)
As described below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally 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, when WordPress is installed, this section contains only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
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 …
(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
***
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 on this page can have an influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your site 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.
The main setting in this section as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly ping various update services when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion
Although this section is 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your SEO-friendly URLs …
(Configuring permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this tutorial: How To Configure WordPress Permalinks
Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to bring more visitors to your site
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the 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 site.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to botnets and hackers.
Go here for more information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web content easily indexable …
(Yoast SEO – WP Plugins For SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your website’s search engine optimization. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find, classify and index, it also lets you specify how to display your content to Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with members of their own online communities can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website using free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social sharing plugins let you specify which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which users can unlock by liking your page.
Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, many themes also provide options for improving SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as clicking a few buttons to enable 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 Features Of WordPress For Increased Traffic Flow
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of business online, it’s important that your website is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
To learn more about the importance of having a legally compliant website, see this article:
WordPress Post Categories & Tags
Post tags and categories help to improve your site’s search optimization, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s tags and categories should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
When configuring your web site to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications discover your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. HTML site maps are web pages that link to all other content on your site and provide visitors with a logical map of how your content is structured, whereas XML sitemaps contain code that only search engine bots can interpret. Although search engines like Google can index your site just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – An Additional Source Of Traffic!
When online visitors enter the wrong URL into their web browser or click on an invalid hyperlink, they are greeted with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found 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 WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do is publish fresh content consistently to automatically start driving traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many web professionals a long time to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is addressed in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To continue reading this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven web marketing strategies.
Subscribe Using The Form Below And Get Notified When New Tutorials Get Published!
***
"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
***