Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is publish content on a consistent basis to start attracting traffic!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase of this process. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things 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 WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured to automatically start attracting new visitors just by adding content on a consistent basis to your web site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as their greatest challenge online. With business becoming ever more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth learning about any advantage available to improve your results and performance online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage over the competition. An expertly configured website gives your business a flying start from the moment your site is launched.
The Configuration Process Is What Makes All The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to understand the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does a whole lot more labor go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing anecdote.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Things are going fine in the gizmo-making plant when everything grinds to a sudden stop.
No one can figure out what’s gone wrong and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert immediately heads towards the main control box. After staring silently at the wires and circuitry for less than 5 minutes or so, the expert then produces a tiny hammer from his utility belt and makes a single tap near the right corner of the control unit.
Immediately, everything comes back to life.
The plant manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager receives an invoice for $5,000.
Furious, the manager rings the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged so much for less than 5 minutes 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 number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic consistently to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one in the business had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for spending years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to assess and avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog configured so all you have to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other web properties would be automatically 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 driving traffic to your site?)
Although the solution to many challenges is often ridiculously simple once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
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 such as:
- Which plugins you need to install to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up to get specific results
- Which settings you need to configure in order to ensure that everything will work the way you have envisioned, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically challenging, but it’s quite involved and time-consuming. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing and configuring a solution, clicking on a button or two, or configuring some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your website, and a number of third-party sites …
(The configuration stage 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 diagram of the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these areas.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your hosting account specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your site may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for good and unwanted traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like implementing spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites and services.
Integration With External Sites
The idea behind setting up external sites is that all of your content is published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it gets distributed automatically to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external sites have been added to your traffic network, content linking back to your site gets automatically posted to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your site will benefit from exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some web properties and online platforms will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to help speed up the configuration process 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 Webmasters)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with essential information, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account with Google Search Console have been set up, use this information to automate traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your account and site data, you can add tracking code to all of your pages in WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and send data instantly to various other online applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account and site details with Bing are set up, this information can be used to automate web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers users a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your traffic system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social accounts set up 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 traffic to your site.
Set up accounts with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(You can syndicate your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your page.
There are many different sites and platforms you can incorporate into your web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure WordPress.
Configuring Your WordPress Site
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 of the important areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
Your WordPress dashboard 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 indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains an important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services text area
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is available …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(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 Settings
This section affects how visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to read the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting here as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to automatically notify all the update services you have specified in the Update Services field whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
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 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
Your Permalink settings enable your site to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways your search-friendly URLS can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Changing Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is completely immune from cyberattacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and bots.
Go here for more details:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(WP SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your site’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it also lets you specify how to present your content to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with members of their own online communities can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social share plugins let you specify 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 likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress Traffic Generation Theme Features – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring design and layout elements of your site, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure settings and options for improved traffic results)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
Additional Areas To Configure
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle bad and good 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, you need to make sure that your site is compliant with all government legal requirements.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, see this article:
WordPress Tags & Categories
WordPress tags & post categories help to improve your site’s search optimization, which helps you get more traffic.
(Categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your website.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and categories should be set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stages.
When configuring your web site to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits.
Visitor Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites discover more of your online content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your 404 Page Not Found
When visitors type in the wrong web address or click on a link pointing to a destination on your website that no longer exists, they will normally be presented with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 Error Page can redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up on your server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website or blog has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you then need to do to automatically begin bringing web traffic is publish web content on a regular 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 components and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of skills and knowledge involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many web professionals a long time 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 the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help business owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively and drive traffic organically with a WordPress website and proven online marketing strategies.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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