Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic machine using WordPress.
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 blog, all you have to do to automatically start generating more web traffic is add new content on a consistent basis!)
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 everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will look at the configuration phase of this process. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured to automatically drive new visitors just by adding web content on your site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration Phase
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive on a global scale and are exploring every advantage they believe will improve their results and performance online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage over other competitors. Having an expertly configured website gives your business a flying start from the moment your site is launched.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally 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 differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does it take more work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a joke.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All is moving along in the widget plant when things grind to a sudden halt.
No one can figure out what is wrong and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert walks immediately towards the control box. After staring at the wires and circuitry for no more than 5 minutes or so, the expert then takes out a tiny little hammer from his shirt pocket and makes a single tap near the left edge of the box.
Immediately, the assembly line springs back to life.
The manager is delighted as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager receives a request of payment for services rendered for the sum of $5,000.
Bordering on outrage, the factory manager dials the expert. Why did he charge them such a ridiculously high fee for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives and is placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive web traffic consistently to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to get paid fairly for years spent developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to immediately avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WP website set up and configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and search engines, social followers from Facebook and Twitter and dozens of other web properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your site?)
Although experts often make complicated solutions look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to work things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than simply installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add various functionalities to your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up to get specific results
- Which options need to be configured to make sure things will work how you have envisioned, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. It’s not just about installing and configuring one or two plugins, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your website or blog, and various external sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram of the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
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). What we are talking about, is configuring settings in your web hosting account that affect how you will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, 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 website will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After your web server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step is to configure a number of external sites and services.
External Sites And Solutions – Configuration
The purpose of adding external sites is that all content will get published to a central location (your site) and from there, it will be distributed automatically to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external sites into your network, content with links pointing back to your website is automatically fed to search, social and aggregator sites. Your site will receive added exposure online, helping you tap into a whole new audience and source of traffic.
Some sites and online platforms will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site 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:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of useful information, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site data with Google are set up, use this information with web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up Google Analytics, you can add your account information to WordPress using a simple plugin and send data automatically to other online applications and web properties.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account and entering site details with Bing, use your details with 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 a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to build a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your web traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various 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 sites and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and profiles set up with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are many social sites you can You can post your content to loads of social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick the ones that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we will look at some of these tools in more detail further below and in the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your own RebelMouse account.
There are many different sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your traffic blueprint. 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 accounts with external services, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site For Traffic
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 of the important points.
WordPress – Global Settings
By default, your WordPress admin area includes a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains an important and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As stated in this 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 services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
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 Settings
This section affects how visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could affect 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.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly ping all the update services you have specified in the Update Services section whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
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 sites 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings Screen)
Here are some of the ways your SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial about setting up WordPress permalinks, go here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
WordPress Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are 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 blog is completely safe from a cyber attack.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
To learn more, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins help increase traffic by improving your website’s SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your site’s SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with members of their online communities can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website using WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site using free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social plugins let you specify which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, 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 linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress Theme Features
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 the design and layout of your site, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a free theme) allow you to configure settings and options for improved traffic results)
With many themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic System Configuration – Additional Sections
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:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online (or plan to), it’s important that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Site Legally Compliant?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
Tags & Categories
Post tags & post categories help search engines better organize and index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(WordPress post categories help search engines classify and index your website, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s post tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
When considering ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and categories you have set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover more of your site’s content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your WordPress 404 Page
When visitors searching online for your site type in the wrong web address or click on a dead hyperlink, they are greeted with an error page …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(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 several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do to automatically start generating traffic is publish great content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration 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 some website professionals a long time to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is explained in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-driven website and proven online marketing methods.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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