Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic generation machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 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 web site, all you have to do to attract new web traffic is post content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase of the blueprint. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything 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 WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration phase of this process. We will explain why an expertly configured WordPress site is different from a professionally configured website, and just what kind of work needs to be done to ensure that when all is fully configured, you can automatically attract visitors whenever you add content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive on a global scale and are exploring every advantage they believe will increase their competitiveness online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage over other competitors. With an expertly configured website, you have a flying start and a significant advantage online.
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 an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to describe the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional 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 tool!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
To illustrate this here is an amusing little story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All was humming along in the gizmo plant when things suddenly stopped.
As no one could figure out what happened, the floor manager decided to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert headed immediately towards the control box. After staring silently at the wiring board for about 3 minutes or so, the expert then produced a little hammer from his tool box and made a very gentle tap about 3 inches from the left-hand corner of the unit.
Immediately, every machine came back to life.
The manager was filled with joy as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager received a request for payment of services rendered totalling $5,000.
The factory manager rang back the expert, demanding to know why they were charged such an exorbitant fee for less than five minutes work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving new traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one in the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for years spent developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WP website configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social followers from sites like Facebook and LinkedIn and dozens of other 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 attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although the solution to many challenges is often ridiculously simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring a few internal settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which services need to be set up to get certain outcomes
- Which options you need to configure in order to ensure that everything will work as planned, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. It’s not as easy as installing and configuring a plugin, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration phase is a process that involves your web server, your web site, and various external sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps in more detail.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking settings in your hosting account 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 web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your website will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like configuring spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After your web server settings have been checked and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites and services.
External Accounts
The concept behind adding external sites is that all content will be published from one central location (your site) and from there, it will be distributed automatically to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external sites to your configuration, content pointing back to your site will get automatically published on your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and business will be given added exposure to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the sites and online platforms will need to be set up before configuring your 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 Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with important information, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site data with Google, use this information to automate 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 activities, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data are set up, you can add traffic tracking code to WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data automatically to other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account has been with Bing are set up, this information can be used with traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which various 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 traffic generation system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need your social accounts set up before you can 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 sites and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site.
You should have accounts and profiles with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online technology platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your page.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications you can incorporate into your traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up third-party site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web 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 key areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress admin area includes a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains an important and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As described in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally configured your settings to discourage 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, this section lists only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you 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
This section affects how your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up 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 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 feature is ticked or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to notify various update services when new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion Settings
Although discussion settings 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow your site to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your post permalinks …
(Configuring post permalinks)
If you need help setting up permalinks, go here: How To Configure Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Traffic Generation Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more visitors to your site
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your website or blog is something you cannot ignore.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to bots and hackers.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages more indexable …
(SEO plugins help increase traffic by improving your website’s SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called 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 presented to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with their social networks can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social features to your site easily with WordPress plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Most social plugins let you specify which 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 shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which users can unlock by sharing your page.
WP 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, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) include built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website 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 Configuration – Additional Features
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic blueprint configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can damage your business as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of business online, it’s important that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
To learn more about the importance of having a compliant website, see this article:
Post Tags And Categories
Post categories and tags help search engines better organize and index your pages, which improves traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your web pages.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s post categories and tags during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags that have been set up.
Add A Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications find more of your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although search engines like Google will index your pages 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 can result in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When online visitors enter the wrong URL or click on an invalid hyperlink, they are greeted with a 404 page …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 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 Phase – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to automatically start generating more traffic is add new content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration phase of the traffic automation process typically takes many web developers a long time to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is addressed in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Part 3
To continue reading this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive tutorial series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively using a WordPress-driven website and proven marketing strategies that are easy to implement.
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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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