Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to automatically begin attracting new traffic is post great content on a consistent basis!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase. 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 website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will discuss the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to ensure that visitors will automatically start flowing when you begin to publish content on a consistent basis on your web site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With competition becoming progressively tougher businesses are researching any advantage available to increase their competitiveness online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a huge advantage over other competitors. For business owners, having an expertly configured website means having an immediate competitive advantage from the very beginning.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site 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’s one way to understand the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and an 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 me illustrate this with a joke.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Things were running smoothly in the gizmo manufacturing plant when everything came to a sudden stop.
As no one could figure out what went wrong, the floor manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert headed immediately towards the control box. After staring at the board for less than 2 minutes, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy hammer from his utility belt and made a single tap near the bottom-right side of the control unit.
Immediately, the assembly line came back to life.
The plant manager was relieved as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager received an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
The factory manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged so much for less than five minutes work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived and was placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
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 widget plant stand to lose when the machines stopped functioning and no one in the business had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for having invested years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WP website or blog fully configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social sites and dozens of other web 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?)
Although the solution to many problems often seems quite simple once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring some basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to add various functionalities to your site.
- Which services need to be set up and activated to get specific results
- Which settings you need to configure in order to make sure things will function as expected, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite involved and time-consuming. This is because it’s not just about installing a solution, clicking a couple of buttons, or configuring some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your website, and a number of external sites and/or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we create a simplified flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these steps.
Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your server that affect how your website will handle all 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 welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your business can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like implementing server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess and 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
After fine-tuning your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites and online services.
Third-Party Accounts
The purpose of adding external sites is that all of your content should be published to a central location (your site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you incorporate these external platforms into your system, content linked back to your site is automatically added to these platforms. Your content and business will benefit from exposure online, helping you tap into a new audience and traffic source.
Some third-party sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress settings to speed up the configuration 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 Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmasters lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with essential information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account, this information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic performance, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, your account data can be easily integrated with WordPress via a plugin and automatically sent to various other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account is set up, use the information to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful 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 automated web traffic generation system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social media 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 accounts and attract new visitors to your site.
Set up profiles with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(There are lots of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging technology platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute social content to social networks)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse website.
There are many different sites and platforms you can incorporate into your own traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
Configuring Your WordPress Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
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 notify the update services entered into the Update Services box
By default, only one service is available …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 your content gets seen by readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your site to view the rest of the content from excerpts, 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 check box is enabled or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically notify your update services list whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Screen)
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 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings Section)
Here are some of the options for configuring your site’s permalinks …
(Configuring post permalinks)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on setting up WP permalinks, go here: Configuring WordPress Permalinks
WordPress Traffic Plugins – Configuration
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality imaginable 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 site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your website or blog.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
For more details, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web content easy for search engines to index …
(WP Plugins For SEO – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your website’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also lets you specify how to display your content in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their site using free or inexpensive plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Many social sharing plugins allow you to select which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
Theme Settings
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 layout and design aspects of your website, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your content is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure For Increased Traffic Flow
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic, 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 as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do any type of business online, it’s important that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With The Law?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website, go here:
WordPress Post Tags And Categories
WordPress tags & post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your website.
(Post categories help search engines index your pages, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s post tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover more of your site’s 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 not the same things. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins 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 Site’s 404 Page
When visitors type in the wrong web address or click on links pointing to pages on your website that no longer exist, they will typically be greeted with an error page (known as a 404 Not Found page) …
(A 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover web 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 plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then to automatically drive traffic is post content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration process can take some website developers months to acquire.
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 explained in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section 3
To keep reading about this topic, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive tutorial series aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
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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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