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 1 of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to automatically start generating web traffic is publish 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 website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to drive web traffic automatically just by adding content consistently on your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration
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 ever more competitive worldwide and are looking for every advantage they can to improve their results and performance online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage over the competition. For business owners, an expertly configured website means having a significant competitive advantage from the very beginning.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here’s one way to explain the main difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special kind of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing anecdote.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Everything is running smoothly in the widget-making assembly line when all of a sudden, the equipment grinds to a complete stop.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrives and, without saying a word, heads immediately towards the main control box. After staring at the wiring diagrams for about 5 minutes or so, the expert then produces a teensy-weensy little hammer and makes a very gentle tap near the bottom-left corner of the control unit.
Immediately, all the machinery starts working once more.
The plant manager is filled with joy as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager receives a bill for $5,000.
Feeling furious, the manager picks up the phone and rings the expert. Why have they had been charged so much for so little time delivering such minimal amount of work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives and is placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to be compensated fairly for years spent developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to immediately assess and avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog fully set up and configured so all you had to do is publish new content and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other web properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
While the solution to many problems can seem ridiculously easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to work things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than simply installing a website and configuring a few settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get certain functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party services you need to set up to get certain results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to ensure that everything works as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically difficult, it can be quite involved. It’s not as simple as installing a piece of software, clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of different components including your web server, your website, and various third-party sites and online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we were to create a simplified diagram showing the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the configuration phase)
Let’s take a brief look at these areas.
Your Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes. What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings in your web-hosting account that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your webhosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your website can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites and services.
External Sites
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all of your content should be published to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, syndicate automatically to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external sites to your setup, content pointing back to your website will get automatically posted to these platforms. Your business will be exposed to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some external sites and online solutions 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’s settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Search Console lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of essential data, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your Google Webmasters account, this information can be used with traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic performance, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
After setting up your account, traffic monitoring data can be easily integrated with WordPress via any of several Google Analytics plugins and and sent to various other useful applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account and site data have been set up, the details can be used with web traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social media and social bookmarking accounts set up in order to integrate these with 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.
Make sure you have accounts set up with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can You can syndicate your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(There are many social sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add a feed from your website …
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 website.
There are various sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your own traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party services, 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 ensure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and often overlooked 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 discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services text area
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is available …
(Writing Settings – WordPress Update Services)
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 Settings
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 traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog 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 main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to instantly ping various update services whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings Section)
Here are some of the ways SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using permalinks in WordPress here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to increase traffic
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is safe from a cyber-attack.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and bots.
For more details, go here:
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 traffic by making your site more search engine friendly)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your site’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to index, it allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with members of their own online communities can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social sharing buttons to your site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins allow you to select which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to protect content which users can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring Settings – WordPress Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, some themes also include built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your content 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 turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic Automation – Other Features To Configure
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic numbers, 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 start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your website is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, go here:
Tags & Post Categories
WordPress post tags and categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.
(Post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your site’s tags and categories 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 categories and tags that have been set up.
Add A 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 applications discover your web content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. HTML site maps are web pages that link to all other content on your site and provide visitors with a logical map of how your content is structured, whereas XML sitemaps contain code that only search engines can interpret. Although search engines like Google will index your site just using 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 can result in increased traffic.
404 Page – Don’t Forget To Configure This Too!
When visitors searching online for your website type in the wrong web address or click on hyperlinks pointing to destinations on your website that no longer exist, they are presented with an error page …
(A 404 Not Found error page)
A 404 Not Found error page can be turned into a useful source of traffic to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your web server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do to automatically start generating new traffic is post new content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different elements and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many website professionals a long time to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is addressed in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read more, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help you learn how to grow your business and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-driven website and proven marketing methods that are easy and quick to implement.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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