Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using WordPress.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to attract more traffic is post new content on a consistent basis!)
In Part Two, we discussed critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this section of the series, we discuss the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site to ensure that visitors will automatically start flowing when you post content to your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive worldwide and are researching every advantage they believe will improve their results and performance online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start as soon as their website is launched.
The Configuration Phase Is What Makes The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here’s one way to describe the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps needed 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 an amusing anecdote.
Knowing Where To Tap
Everything is going fine in the widget-making assembly line when things suddenly grinds to a stop.
As no one can figure out what’s gone wrong, the floor manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Soon afterward, the expert arrives and immediately heads towards the control box. After staring at the control unit for 3 minutes or less, the expert then produces a tiny little hammer from his tool belt and makes a gentle tap near the right side of the unit.
Immediately, everything returns to normal.
The floor manager is filled with joy as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager receives a bill for $5,000.
Bewildered and angry, the factory manager calls the expert. Why had he charged them so much for less than 5 minutes work? He then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives on the manager’s desk. 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 gizmo factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to be compensated fairly for years spent building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to quickly assess and avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WP website or blog set up and configured so all you had to do is publish new content and search engines, social 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 driving traffic to your site?)
While experts often make complicated solutions look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which services you need to set up and activate to achieve desired results
- Which options need to be configured to ensure that things will function to plan, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite involved and time-consuming. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing a piece of software, clicking on a button or two, or configuring some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many parts such as your web hosting server, your website or blog, and various external sites …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we were to create a simple flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine what’s involved in more detail.
Configuring Your Web Server
We’re not talking 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 tweaking settings and options in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web-hosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic you will attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like implementing server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email 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, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites.
Configuring External Services
The idea behind adding external sites is that all content will be posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it will get automatically distributed to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external services into your traffic system, content linking back to your website gets automatically added to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and business will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress 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 before configuring your site:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmaster Tools 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, tools and reports about your website.
Once your account has been with Google are set up, the information can be used to automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, you can add visitor tracking information to WordPress via a simple Google Analytics plugin and feed data automatically to many other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account, you can use the information with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers website owners the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to build a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated web traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social accounts set up before you can configure these as part of your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and bring new traffic to your site.
You should have profiles set up with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(You can syndicate your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier 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 allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute your content to social networks)
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 social feed.
There are various sites and platforms you can incorporate into your own web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website 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 of the important areas.
Global WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress administration area includes a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As described below the Update Services section,
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, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services section
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section lists only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s decision 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.
The main setting in this section as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Generally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to instantly notify all the update services you have listed in the Update Services section whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion
Although this section is mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to sites linked to from your posts, 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 Screen)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks enable your site to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the ways your search-friendly URLS can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks here: Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to increase traffic
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what kind 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 website security.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bots and hackers.
Go here for more information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving improving the way search engines like Google and Bing find, classify and index your web pages …
(WP Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can improve your SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines to index, it also lets you specify how to display your content to Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social features to your website easily with WordPress plugins)
You can add social features to your site easily using WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins allow you to select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring Settings – WordPress Themes
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 the layout and design of your website, some themes also give you built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your site is as easy as clicking a few buttons and enabling the function …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
Other Configuration Steps For WordPress
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in visitor 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 as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do any type of business online, you need to make sure that your site complies with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
To learn more about how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your site, go here:
Categories And Tags
WordPress post categories and tags help search engines index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s post tags and categories during the Website Planning Stages.
When configuring your web site to automate and improve web 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 visitor site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications discover more of your website 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. Although search engines like Google can index your site just using 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 404 Error Page
When visitors searching for your website enter the wrong URL or click on an invalid hyperlink, they will normally be greeted with an error – page not found message …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured into a useful source of traffic to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your web server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website or blog has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then is add web content consistently to automatically begin attracting new traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform this process typically takes many web developers a long time to acquire.
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 section of the series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read more, click on the link below:
- Web Site Traffic Blueprint Part 4 – Learn How To Turn Your Website Into A Traffic Generation Machine
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping website owners learn how to grow their business using a WordPress website and proven marketing methods that are easy and quick to implement.
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