Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to automatically bring more web traffic is add great content consistently!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we discuss the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that web traffic will automatically start flowing simply by regularly posting content on your web site.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive and are researching any advantage available to get better results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage. For businesses, having an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start from the moment their website is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here’s one way to understand the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is more work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this point here is an amusing anecdote.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything is running smoothly in the widget-making plant when all machinery suddenly stops.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert walks straight towards the main control box. After staring silently at the electronic components for less than 5 minutes or so, the expert then produces a tiny little hammer and makes a very gentle tap near the top-left edge of the control unit.
Immediately, everything comes back to life.
The floor manager is filled with joy as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Bewildered, the manager dials the expert. Demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work, he then 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 web traffic to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the business was able to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for spending years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WP site set up so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networks and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although experts often make complex things look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring settings for a client. 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 3rd-party services need to be set up to achieve desired outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured in order to make sure things will work as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite complicated. This is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a solution, tweaking some options and settings in your admin area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your web server, your site, and a number of external sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If all the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the configuration phase)
Let’s take a better look at what’s involved.
Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings in your server that affect how your site will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your hosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your website will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like integrating server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess 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 fine-tuned and configured, the next step is to configure various external sites and services.
Configuring External Services
The purpose of adding external sites is that all of your content will be posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it will be distributed automatically to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external sites have been added to your system, content pointing back to your site will get automatically published on your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and site will be exposed to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some web properties and online solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress 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 before configuring your site’s settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of important data, tools and reports about your website.
Once your Google Search Console account and site details are set up, this information can be used to integrate and automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic results, SEO, marketing efforts, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data have been set up, you can add your account information to all of your web pages in WordPress using a Google Analytics plugin and send data automatically to other applications and web properties.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account and entering site details with Bing Webmaster Tools, this information can be used to integrate and automate traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress provides users with a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your automated web traffic generation system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social media accounts 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 bring new traffic to your site.
You should have accounts with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are many social sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick those that will work well with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging web platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own RebelMouse website.
There are various platforms that can be incorporated into your web traffic blueprint. Please 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 Website Or Blog For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
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
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(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 or your webmaster have specifically chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, this section lists only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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
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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 visitors will see your content 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 a summary of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to get the rest of the content from summaries, 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 checkbox is enabled or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically ping various update services whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
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)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways your post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using permalinks here: Setting Up Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are 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 site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No website is completely immune from a cyber attack.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bots and hackers.
To learn more, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress Plugins For SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your website’s SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social sharing features to your site easily with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social sharing plugins let you choose which 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 social share plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which users can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring WordPress Traffic Features In Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
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 navigation structure for better indexing, easily add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) include built-in traffic optimization features)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing features to your site is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons and enabling the feature …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure For Improved Traffic Results
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as 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 complies with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
Post Tags & Post Categories
Post categories and tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your web pages.
(Post categories help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your website’s post categories and tags during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover your online content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Configure Your 404 Page
When online visitors type in the wrong URL or click on a dead hyperlink, they will normally be presented with an error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect 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 area.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do then to automatically begin bringing new web traffic is post content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many web professionals 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 the 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 designed to help you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively with a WordPress-driven website and proven online marketing methods.
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