Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive visitors automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is add web content on a consistent basis to automatically start generating new web traffic!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. We explain how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that web traffic will automatically start flowing simply by posting new content to your site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With competition becoming increasingly more difficult businesses are looking for every advantage they can that can help you get better results online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage over the competition. With an expertly configured WordPress site, you have a flying start and a significant advantage online.
The Configuration Phase Is What Makes 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 is a simple way to understand the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a professional 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 does it take extra work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
A Semi-True Story …
All was going well in the gizmo-making assembly line when everything ground to a sudden halt.
As no one could figure out what happened, the manager decided to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert headed out directly to the control box. After staring silently at the box for less than 3 minutes or so, the expert then produced a teeny-weeny hammer and made a very gentle tap about two cm from the right side of the unit.
Immediately, everything started working once again.
The floor manager was grateful and relieved as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received an invoice for $5,000.
The factory manager picked up the phone and dialed the expert, demanding to know why they were being charged such a ridiculously high fee for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving visitors to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to ask to be compensated fairly for years spent developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog set up so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networks and dozens of other web properties would be automatically 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 website?)
While experts often make complicated situations and problems look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring settings for the client. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get various functionalities on your site.
- Which services need to be set up and activated to get desired outcomes
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to make sure things will function as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. It’s not as easy as installing and configuring a piece of software, tweaking some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration stage is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your website or blog, and various third-party sites or online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we create a simple diagram showing the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine these steps.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your hosting account specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your webhosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your business can attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like configuring spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step is to set up and configure various third-party sites.
Integration With External Accounts
The concept behind choosing external sites is that all content should be published to a central location (your site) and from there, syndicate automatically to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After incorporating these external services into your network, content linked back to your website gets automatically syndicated to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content will receive increased exposure online, helping your business tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of these external web properties and online services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress settings to speed up the 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 before configuring your site:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with essential data, SEO tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site details, you can use this information to automate web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic results, SEO, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your account and site data, traffic tracking information can be integrated with WordPress via any of several Google Analytics plugins used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account is set up, your details can be used to integrate and automate traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated traffic system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media accounts in order to 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 attract new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have profiles set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we cover some of these tools in more detail during the Automation phase).
(There are lots of social sites you can post your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add a feed from your WordPress blog …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse page.
There are various technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
WordPress Settings
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services section
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section lists only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list of update services to this section …
(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 in this section can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website to read the rest of the content from a partial feed, 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 in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to ping various update services whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, do not check this box …
(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 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
Here are some of the options for configuring your search-friendly URLS …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using WordPress permalinks here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
WordPress Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is safe from cyberattacks.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
For more details, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving improving the way search engines like Google and Bing find and index your web pages …
(WP Plugins For SEO – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your website’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site 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 sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you provide content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social features to their website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social share plugins let you choose 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 protect content or downloads which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress Traffic Generation Theme Features – Configuration
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, some themes also give you options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing features to your content is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of business online, you need to make sure that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog, refer to this article:
WordPress Post Tags & Categories
Post tags and post categories help search engines index your web pages, which helps to increase traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your website.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s post tags and categories during the Website Planning Process.
When configuring your website to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags that have been set up.
A Site Map Of Your Pages and Posts
A site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites discover more of your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. 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.
404 Page – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When visitors searching online for your website type in the wrong URL or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your website that no longer exists, they are presented with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 error page) …
(A 404 Not Found page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then to automatically bring traffic is publish new content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and knowledge involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many web developers months 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 addressed in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part 3
To continue reading this article, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively using a WordPress-powered website and proven online marketing methods.
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