Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this article series, we provided an overview of 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 site, all you have to do is post content regularly to automatically attract more web traffic!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase. We explained the best way to start 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, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic automation process. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured in order to begin getting visitors automatically just by posting fresh content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With competition making business survival increasingly more difficult businesses are researching every advantage available to improve their results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a significant 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.
Here is a simple way to explain the key difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does it take additional work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a little story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Things are going just fine in the gizmo factory when all equipment suddenly stops.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrives and, without saying a word, immediately walks towards the main control box. After staring silently at the electronic components for 5 minutes or less, the expert then takes out a tiny hammer and makes a single tap about two cm from the right corner of the unit.
Immediately, everything returns once again to normal.
The floor manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager receives a request for payment of services rendered for the sum of $5,000.
With great anger, the manager picks up the phone and calls the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them such a ludicrous fee for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement 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 web traffic to their sites.
How much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the machines stopped working and no one on the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to demand fair compensation for spending years building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to repair a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP website configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
Although many experts often make difficult solutions look easy, 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 a few basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to add certain functionalities to your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up to get certain outcomes
- Which options you need to configure in order to ensure that things work as envisioned, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite involved. It’s not as easy as installing and configuring one or two plugins, tweaking some settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of many parts including your web hosting server, your web site, and various third-party sites and/or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas.
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). What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings and options in your server that affect how your site will handle all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your hosting account settings need to be checked 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 spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step is to set up and configure various external sites.
Integration With External Web Properties
The concept behind choosing external sites is that all content gets posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it then gets distributed automatically to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external services have been added to your system, content linked back to your website will be automatically posted to search, social and aggregator sites. Your business will benefit from exposure online, helping you tap into new sources of traffic.
Some third-party web properties and online solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to speed up the configuration process and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts before configuring your settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with essential information, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
Once your Google Search Console account has been set up, your information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic results, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data are set up, tracking information can be easily integrated with WordPress using a plugin and and sent to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account and entering site data with Bing, this information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers website owners a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to build a professional web presence.
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 automated traffic system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your various social media accounts in order to 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 get new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have accounts set up with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we cover some of these tools in more detail in the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
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 account.
There are various platforms you can add to your own traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Configuring WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and often overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(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 or your webmaster have intentionally configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services box
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section displays only one entry …
(Writing Settings – WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(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 your content gets seen by readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content shows up 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 get the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The most important setting here as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to instantly notify the update services list when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Settings Menu – 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 blogs 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)
Permalinks
Permalinks enable your site to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways your SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have created a detailed tutorial about using permalinks in WordPress here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality to your site, including traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at 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 the effects of 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, securing your web site is something you cannot ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to bot and hacker attacks.
To learn more, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins help increase traffic by improving your website’s SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your site’s SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with their friends and members of their social networks can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing to your website with free or inexpensive plugins)
There are many social sharing plugins to choose from.
Most social sharing plugins allow you to choose which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress Traffic Features In Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, many themes also include built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons to your website is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
Additional Sections Of WordPress To Configure For Improved Traffic Results
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the situations that can cause serious damage to your business when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do any type of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site complies with government laws and regulations.
(Is Your Site Legally Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article about why it’s important to have a compliant website here:
Post Tags And Categories
WordPress tags and categories help search engines index your pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(Categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and post categories should be set up during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits.
A Site Map Of Your Pages and Posts
A site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites discover more of your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although Google can index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page – An Additional Source Of Traffic!
When visitors searching online for your site type in the wrong web address or click on an invalid hyperlink, they are greeted with an error – page not found message …
(A 404 Error Page)
A 404 Error Page can redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do is add great content on a consistent basis to drive more traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different components and web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of skills and expertise required to perform this stage of the traffic automation process can take some web developers a long time to learn.
Once you have expertly 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 article in the WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section 3
To continue reading this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic organically with a WordPress website and proven online marketing strategies.
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