Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic machine using WordPress.
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 web site, all you have to do is publish content on a consistent basis to automatically drive traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence 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 look at the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured in order to automatically begin bringing new traffic as you begin publishing fresh content on your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive and are exploring any opportunity they can to get better results online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous competitive advantage. With an expertly configured WordPress site, you have an immediate competitive advantage from the word “go”.
The Configuration Phase Is What Makes The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s one way to describe the key difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take extra work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this here is an amusing story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Things were going just fine in the widget assembly factory when everything suddenly ground to a halt.
No one could figure out what happened and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately went to the main control box. After staring silently at the wires and circuitry for about 2 minutes, the expert then took out a teeny-weeny little hammer from his shirt pocket and made a single tap near the right-hand side of the control unit.
Immediately, the assembly line sprang to life.
The manager was relieved as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received a bill for $5,000.
The manager picked up the phone and called the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a large amount of money for so little time delivering a minimal amount of work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive web traffic consistently to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to get paid fairly for investing years building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and repair a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP web site fully set up so all you ever had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other web properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
Although many experts often make complicated solutions look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring site settings for the client. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party services you need to set up to achieve specific results
- Which options need to be configured in order to ensure that everything works how you want, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. It’s not as simple as installing and configuring one or two plugins, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration stage is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your website, and various third-party sites and online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we were to create a simplified flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved in more detail.
Configuring The Web Server
We’re not talking here 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 and options in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your site will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess and error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step is to set up and configure a number of third-party sites and/or online services.
External Services
The basic concept of adding external sites is that all of your content will get published from one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get automatically distributed to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After incorporating these external services into your setup, content linking back to your site gets automatically posted to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social networks, even to users of the platform itself. Your business will be exposed to a new audience and new sources of traffic.
Some of these external sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your settings to help save time 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 Webmasters)
Google Webmasters lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of important information, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site details with Google are set up, you can use your account information with web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data have been set up, you can add traffic tracking information to all of your web pages in WordPress via a plugin and feed data automatically to many other applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account is with Bing have been set up, this information can be used with traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, 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 traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social media accounts 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 pages and bring new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have pages set up with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select those that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools (we cover some of these tools in greater detail further below and in the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging web platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
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 account.
There are various solutions you can incorporate into your web traffic system. Please 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 server settings and set up third-party site accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
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.
Global Settings
Your WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains an important and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
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 configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of update services entered into the Update Services section
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section contains only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
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 visitors will see your content 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 summaries of your post, affects how your content displays 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 blog 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 in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to ping all the update services you have listed whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings)
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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the ways your permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks in WordPress here: Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
Configuring Settings – Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of 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
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you simply cannot ignore the importance of website security.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to hackers and bots.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web content more indexable …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your site’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your website easily with free or inexpensive plugins)
You can easily add social features to your website using WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins let you specify which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With many themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure For Better Traffic Results
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or plan to), it’s important that your website remains compliant with all laws and regulations.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, go here:
Post Categories And Tags
Post tags and categories help search engines index your web pages, which helps to increase traffic.
(Categories help search engines better classify and index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your website’s tags and categories during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags that have been set up.
A Site Map Of Your Pages and Posts
A site map that lists all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites find your web 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 two different things. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Don’t Forget Your Site’s 404 Error Page
When visitors type in the wrong web address or click on a link pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they will normally be presented with an error page …
(A 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up in your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do is publish new content consistently to drive web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration process typically takes some web developers a long time to acquire.
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 our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive tutorial series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic sustainably using a WordPress website and proven online marketing strategies.
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