Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new traffic automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to bring web traffic is post web content consistently!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase. We explained the best way to get started 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 website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured to automatically begin bringing visitors when you start to post fresh content on your web site.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as their greatest challenge online. With competition making business survival progressively tougher businesses are researching every opportunity they can to get better results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a huge advantage over the competition. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start from the moment their site is launched.
Configuration Is 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 its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to explain the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only is extra labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Allow me to illustrate this point with a little story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything is going just fine in the gizmo factory when things suddenly grinds to a halt.
As no one can figure out what’s happened, the plant manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately goes to the main control box. After staring silently at the box for no more than 5 minutes, the expert then produces a tiny hammer and makes a very gentle tap near the right-hand edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything starts working again.
The manager is delighted as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a request of payment for services rendered totalling $5,000.
Confused and bewildered, the manager picks up the phone and calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for less than 5 minutes work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the equipment stopped functioning and no one on the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for years spent developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to assess and repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress blog set up and configured so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social media and dozens of other web properties would be instantly 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 website?)
While experts often make complicated situations and problems look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than installing a website and configuring settings for clients. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up and activate to get desired results
- Which settings need to be configured to ensure that everything will function as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite involved and complicated. It’s not just about installing a solution, tweaking some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your web hosting server, your web site, and a number of third-party sites and online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few 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 all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a better look at these steps.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your web server that affect how your site will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your business will attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like configuring server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After your server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites and online services.
External Accounts
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all of your content will be posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get distributed automatically to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external sites have been added to your traffic system, content linking back to your site will be automatically fed to these platforms. Your content and website will receive exposure online, helping you tap into new sources of traffic.
Some sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your 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 Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of important information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account is set up, your details can be used to integrate and automate traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, you can add traffic monitoring code to all of your pages in WordPress via plugins and send data instantly to various other online applications and web properties.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account, this information can be used to automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers both the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to build a professional online presence.
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 generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media pages and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need your various 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 and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have set up profiles with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can You can post your content to many social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools (we discuss some of these tools in greater detail further below and during the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to loads of social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online technology platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add an RSS feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your account.
There are many different platforms you can incorporate into your web traffic system. 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 web server and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress Site Configuration
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 of the important areas.
WordPress Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of update services entered into the Update Services section
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Writing Settings – WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(You can 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 visitors will see your content 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 content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to view the rest of the content from excerpts, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to instantly notify your list of 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, do not check this box …
(Settings Menu – 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 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)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways your SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using WP permalinks here: Setting Up WordPress Permalinks
Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to attract more visitors to your site
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with 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 website security.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to hackers and bots.
For more information, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages more search engine friendly …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your site’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines to index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with members of their social communities can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Most social plugins let you select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, 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 linking or tweeting your page.
Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Configuring Additional WordPress Sections
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of business online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your site is found to comply with government legal requirements.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
Post Tags & Categories
Tags & categories help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which improves traffic.
(Categories help search engines index your web pages, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s post tags and categories during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories that have been set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications find more of your site’s content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although Google can index your site just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – An Additional Source Of Traffic!
When visitors searching online for your site type in the wrong web address or click on a link pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they will normally be presented with a 404 page …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do is post fresh content regularly to automatically generate web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform this phase of the traffic automation process can take some website developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next article in our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping site owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively with a WordPress-powered website and proven marketing methods that are easy to implement.
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