Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive visitors automatically to your website using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this series, we described the process, and 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 to begin attracting new traffic is add fresh content regularly!)
In Part Two, we looked at critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to start 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 website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured to ensure that traffic will automatically start flowing simply by publishing fresh content to your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Also, the business landscape is becoming so much more competitive and businesses are researching any and every advantage they can that can help you get better results online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage. An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a significant competitive advantage from the word “go”.
The Configuration Phase Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here’s a simple way to understand the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a little story.
A Semi-True Story …
Things are running smoothly in the gizmo assembly line when everything grinds to a sudden halt.
As no one can figure out what’s wrong, the plant manager decides to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert heads immediately towards the control box. After staring at the control unit for 5 minutes, the expert then takes out a tiny hammer and makes a single tap about two inches from the left side of the control unit.
Immediately, the machinery returns once more to normal.
The manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager receives a request of payment for services totalling $5,000.
Outraged and furious, the factory manager dials the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged such a large amount of money for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive new traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor was able to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for spending years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to immediately avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WP blog configured so all you have to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be automatically 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?)
Although the solution to many problems is often ridiculously simple once implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than just installing a website and configuring basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which services you need to set up and activate to achieve desired results
- Which options need to be configured in order to make sure things will work to plan, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. It’s not as simple as installing and configuring a solution, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of various different parts including your web hosting server, your website, and a number of third-party sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we create a simplified diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these areas.
Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic you will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for both bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to set up and configure various external sites and/or online solutions.
Third-Party Accounts
The basic idea of choosing external sites is that all of your content should be posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will automatically be syndicated to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external services to your configuration, content pointing back to your website will get automatically fed to these platforms. Your content and business benefits from exposure online, helping your business tap into a new audience and source of traffic.
Some third-party sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site 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:
Google Webmasters
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Search Console lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your Google Webmasters account is set up, use your details to automate web traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data have been set up, your account information can be added to all web pages in WordPress using a simple Google Analytics plugin used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account and entering site data, use this information with traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) 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 option if you plan to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites 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.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and drive new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have accounts and profiles set up with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick the ones that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools (we discuss some of these tools in greater detail during the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. 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 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 page.
There are various solutions that can be incorporated into your own web traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration 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 WordPress settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – 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 intentionally chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services section
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is listed …
(Writing Settings – WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section …
(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 your content gets seen by readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence 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 RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s choice 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 most important setting here as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to instantly ping the update services list whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion
Although this section is 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings Section)
The examples below show some of the ways permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
If you need help setting up WP permalinks, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring Settings – WP Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s take a brief look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is safe from being targeted.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your web pages …
(WP Plugins For SEO – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your site’s SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines to find and index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing buttons to your site with WordPress plugins)
You can add social features to your site easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins allow you to specify 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 likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your pages which users can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress – Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring layout and design elements of your site, some themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation 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 WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your site is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure For Better Traffic Results
Last (but by no means least) in the configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you make money online (or plan to), it’s important that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
We have written a detailed article on the importance of having a compliant website here:
WordPress Post Tags And Categories
WordPress categories and tags help search engines index your pages, which helps to increase traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your web pages.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s categories and tags should be discussed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
When configuring your website or blog to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories that have been set up.
Add A Site Map
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications find more of your online content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. HTML site maps are web pages that link to all other content on your site and provide users with a an understandable map of how your content is structured, whereas XML sitemaps are code that only search bots can understand. 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), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Configure Your WordPress 404 Error Page
When visitors searching online for your site type in the wrong web address or click on links pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they will normally be presented with a 404 error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 Not Found page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(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 from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your website or blog has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do then to automatically begin bringing new web traffic is publish fresh content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of various elements and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some website developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as can be automated. This step is covered in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Section 3
To continue reading about this topic, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive tutorial series designed to help business owners learn how to grow their business online with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven online marketing methods.
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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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