In Part 1 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, we explained that the key to turning your site into an automated web traffic generation machine is to use an “expertly configured” WordPress website.
As we also explained, an expertly configured WordPress website is not the same as a professionally-configured WordPress website or blog. An expertly configured WordPress website or blog is a blog that is not only driven by the WordPress CMS platform, but has also been expertly set up and configured (either by yourself or professionally) to take advantage of the enormous power, features and functionality of WordPress and its integration with various services, specifically in areas like search engine optimization, 3rd-party site syndication and reporting.
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to bring more web traffic is add great content on a regular basis!)
Once your WordPress site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you then need to do is add great content regularly to automatically drive more traffic organically.
As outlined in Part One of this article series, the components of the automated website traffic machine are as follows:
- Setup
- Configure
- Automate
- Optimize
In this article, we discuss the “Setup” phase of this process. The focus of this section is to help you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, or if you already have an existing site that may or may not have been built using WordPress.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Setup
If You Have No Web Presence Yet
If you haven’t got a website yet, it’s quite simple … build a WordPress site!
WordPress is the most powerful, flexible, cost-effective and easy-to-use content management system on the planet. We provide loads of articles, tutorials, and tips about the benefits and advantages of using WordPress to grow your business online.
For example, to see just how popular WordPress is as a web content publishing platform, see this article: Some Really Useful Statistics About WordPress Usage
After making the choice to build your website with WordPress, the next step is to choose which WordPress platform you will use to run your web presence on.
This is important because there are 2 types of WordPress platforms you can choose from …
WordPress – Hosted vs Self-Hosted
(WordPress – Self-Hosted Or Hosted?)
WordPress provides users with a ”hosted” and a “self-hosted” option.
With the “self-hosted” option you can download the full-featured WordPress CMS application for free from WordPress.org and host a WordPress site or blog under your own domain name.
With the “hosted option”, WordPress hosts your blog for free at WordPress.com. There are, however, a number of limitations to what you can and can’t do with your blog when it is hosted for free at WordPress.com.
If you plan to build a professional web presence and you want to set up the traffic system described here, then you should choose the “self-hosted” WordPress version. The benefits of choosing the “self-hosted” option (WordPress.org) far outweigh those of hosting a free site at WordPress.com. You get to have full control over your web presence and avoid the limitations of the hosted option. Keep in mind that You can overcome the limitations of the free hosting options by upgrading to a paid option, but then why not just start off with a WordPress site hosted on your own domain and avoid the hassles of upgrading later?
If You Already Have An Existing Site
If you already own an existing web site, check first if it has been built using WordPress.
If you need help with this step, check this article: How To Check If Your Web Site Is A WP Site
If your existing web site was built with WordPress, move to the next step, and make sure that your site’s internal settings have been properly configured. We cover this step in more detail in another tutorial.
If your existing blog runs on something other than the WP CMS platform, then you will need to make some decisions.
Take a look at the flowchart below. It will help you decide how to set up WordPress on your domain …
(Use this simple flowchart to decide how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
Basically, you have two choices:
- Replace your existing site with a WordPress site, or
- Keep your existing site and add a WordPress blog. This blog will then be used to drive traffic to your main website.
If you choose to keep your existing site and add a WordPress-driven blog, make sure to use the self-hosted version of WordPress, which requires your own domain name and web hosting, but allows you to fully configure your site’s settings and customize the design of your existing website using an appropriate WP theme.
To use WordPress for your main website, install the platform in the “root” directory of your domain (e.g. mydomainname.com).
If you already have a website, then you will want to install WordPress in a subfolder of your domain, e.g. www.mydomainname.com/blog (you can name your subfolder whatever you like).
If you have a website that you don’t want to delete or replace with a WordPress site, you can choose to set up your WordPress site or blog on an entirely different domain.
This way:
- mydomainname.com – goes to your existing website
- myotherdomain.com – goes to your WordPress site
Once you have set up your WordPress site, the next step is to configure it. This step is explained in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Two
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This article is part of an tutorial series designed to help business owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively with a WordPress website or blog and proven marketing methods that are easy to implement.
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