Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic generating machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to start generating new web traffic is publish web content on a regular basis!)
In Part 2, we focused on 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 site, and what to do if your existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we look at the configuration stage of the traffic system. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site so you can get new visitors automatically just by consistently adding new content to your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Also, the business landscape is becoming increasingly more competitive worldwide and businesses are looking for every advantage they can that can help you improve their performance and results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a huge advantage over the competition. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website allows their business to get off to a flying start as soon as their website is launched.
The Difference Is In The Configuration Process
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to understand the key difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
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 a joke.
A Semi-True Story …
All is going just fine in the gizmo factory when everything comes to a sudden stop.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
The expert arrives shortly afterward and, without uttering a word, immediately goes to the main control box. After staring at the control unit for 2 minutes or less, the expert then takes out a little hammer and makes a very gentle tap near the left-hand corner of the control unit.
Immediately, the assembly line starts working as before.
The manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager receives an invoice for the sum of $5,000.
Feeling angry, the factory manager calls the expert. Why had they had been charged such a ridiculously high fee for less than five minutes work? He then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive web traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the machines stopped functioning and no one on the business was able to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to demand fair compensation for having spent years developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to immediately fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WP website configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other online properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
While the solution to many challenges is often quite simple in hindsight, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which services need to be set up and activated to get specific outcomes
- Which options need to be configured to ensure that things function as envisioned, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved and time-consuming. It’s not just about installing a solution, clicking a couple of buttons, or configuring some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of different parts such as your server, your website or blog, and a number of external sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simple diagram of the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine these steps in more detail.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your server specifically for handling 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 traffic your business can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like implementing spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites and services.
External Accounts
The idea behind adding external sites is that all of your content should be published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external platforms to your network, content linking back to your site is automatically added to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your website will be exposed to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some of these sites and online services will need to be 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 before configuring your settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmasters lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of important data, tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account with Google Search Console, use this information to integrate and automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrers, etc.
After setting up your account and site details, traffic monitoring data can be integrated with WordPress via plugins used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account has been set up, you can use the details with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers both a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your web traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your social media and social bookmarking accounts in order to 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 traffic to your site.
Make sure you have accounts and profiles set up with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can You can syndicate your content to many social sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick those that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(You can post your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse account.
There are many different solutions that can be incorporated into your traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress administration area includes a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As stated below 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 configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section includes only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 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 content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could impact 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.
The most important setting here as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to notify the update services list when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
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 sites linked to from your posts, 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)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your site’s permalinks …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
To learn more about setting up WP permalinks, see this step-by-step tutorial: Configuring WordPress Permalinks
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.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to attract more visitors to your site
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with the effects of 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 ignore the importance of securing your website.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
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 traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your web pages …
(WordPress Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find, crawl and index, it allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with members of their online communities can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing to your site with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social share plugins allow you to select which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, many themes also include options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
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 have built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic System – Other Important Areas To Consider
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic system configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you make money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site complies with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices.
(Is Your Site Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
Post Tags And Post Categories
Tags & post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your website.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
When configuring your site to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although search engines like Google can index your site just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your WordPress 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching for your website type in the wrong web address or click on a hyperlink pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they are greeted with an error page (known as a 404 page) …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 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 several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do is post content on a consistent basis to drive more web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of various elements and external web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The skills and knowledge involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many web professionals a long time to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is covered in the next section of our WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Part Three
To continue reading, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help you learn how to grow your business online using a WordPress website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
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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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