Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is add content on a regular basis to automatically start attracting traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the blueprint. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this section, we look at the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to attract new visitors automatically when you publish fresh content to your site.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive worldwide and are exploring any opportunity they can to improve their performance online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage over other competitors. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
The Configuration Stage Is What Makes All The Difference
There is a significant 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 its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to explain the main difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
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 type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing little story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All is going well in the widget assembly line when things suddenly grinds to a stop.
As no one can figure out what’s happened, the plant manager decides to call in an expert.
The expert arrives within 15 minutes and, without saying a word, immediately goes towards the main control box. After staring at the control unit for no more than 2 minutes, the expert then takes out a teensy-weensy hammer and makes a very gentle tap about one inch from the top-right corner of the unit.
Immediately, everything comes back to life.
The floor manager is delighted as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a request of payment for services totalling $5,000.
Furious, the manager dials the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged so much for less than five minutes work, he promptly 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 #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the factory stand to lose when production stopped working and no one on the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to get paid fairly for having invested years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to immediately fix a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WP blog set up and configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social followers from Facebook and Twitter and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
While experts often make difficult things look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up and activate to achieve specific outcomes
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure in order to make sure everything works to plan, etc.
(Driving 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 involved. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing a solution, clicking on a button or two, or tweaking some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your web hosting server, your site, and various third-party sites and/or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram of the configuration phase)
Let’s examine what’s involved in more detail.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for site installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is configuring settings and options in your web-hosting account that affect how your website will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic you can attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for both good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like configuring spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After your web server settings have been checked and configured, the next step is to set up and configure a number of third-party sites and services.
3rd-Party Services
The concept behind choosing external sites is that all of your content should be published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, get automatically distributed to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external sites to your network, content linking back to your site is automatically fed to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your website will then be given additional exposure to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of these external sites and solutions will need to be set up before configuring your site’s settings to help 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:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of useful information, SEO tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site details, use the information to integrate and automate web traffic 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 results, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your account and site data, account information can be added to WordPress using a simple plugin used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account and entering site details, the details can be used with web traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. 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 platform if you are planning to build 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 at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your automated web traffic generation 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 get new visitors to your site)
You will need your social media 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 drive new traffic to your site.
You should have accounts and pages set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can You can post your content to lots of social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose the ones that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(You can syndicate your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your own RebelMouse website.
There are various sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your own web traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website Or Blog For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress – Global Settings
The WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains an important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Section)
As described 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 update services entered into the Update Services box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(Writing Settings – WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically …
(You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
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
***
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 in this section can influence web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website to get 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 your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically notify all the update services you have specified in the Update Services box whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion
Although discussion settings 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 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow your site to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks Screen)
Here are some of the options for configuring your site’s post permalinks …
(Configuring post permalinks)
If you need help setting up WordPress permalinks, see this step-by-step tutorial: Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
WordPress Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
WordPress 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. No web site is completely immune from being attacked.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
For more details, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your web pages …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by improving your site’s SEO)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines to find, classify and index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing to your site with WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social share plugins allow you to choose which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which users can unlock by sharing your page.
Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, some themes also include built-in 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) allow you to configure options and settings for better traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons and enabling the feature …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic – Additional Configuration Steps
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with 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 do any type of business online, it’s important that your website stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?)
For a detailed article about how to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress site, see this article:
Post Categories & Tags
Categories & post tags help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.
(Post categories help search engines better classify and index your web pages, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s tags and categories should be set up during the Website Planning Process.
When looking at ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
A visitor site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools find 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 will index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When online users enter the wrong web address into their browser or click on a hyperlink pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they are greeted with an error page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website or blog has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do is publish content on a regular basis to begin bringing traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform the configuration stage of the traffic automation process typically takes many web professionals a long time to learn.
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 our series.
This is the end of Section Three
To continue reading this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
Subscribe Using The Form Below And Get Notified When New WordPress Tutorials Get Published!
***
"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya
***