Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is post new content on a regular basis to start generating traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase of this process. We helped you understand the best way to start 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 site was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section, we look at the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured to begin to get web traffic automatically simply by consistently posting fresh content to your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as their greatest challenge online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive and are researching any advantage available to improve their performance and results online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a huge competitive advantage. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website means having a significant advantage from the very start.
The Configuration Stage Is What Makes All 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 builder but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here is a simple way to describe the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only is additional labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this point here’s a story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything is moving along in the widget-making workshop when things grind to a sudden stop.
No one can figure out what went wrong and so the manager decides to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert immediately heads towards the control box. After staring silently at the board for 3 minutes, the expert then produces a tiny little hammer from his utility belt and makes a gentle tap about two cm from the left-hand corner of the control unit.
Immediately, everything springs back to life.
The manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager receives an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
With great anger, the manager picks up the phone and calls the expert. Why had he charged them such an exorbitant fee for so little time delivering a minimal amount of work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives and is placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the machines stopped working and no one on the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to be compensated fairly for years spent building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to repair a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress blog configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other web 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 experts often make complex situations and problems look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to work things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than simply installing a website and configuring a few internal settings. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to get various functionalities on your site.
- Which services need to be set up and activated to get desired outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured in order to make sure processes will work how you have envisioned, etc.
(Driving new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. This is because it’s not just about installing a piece of software, configuring some options and settings in your dashboard area or clicking on a button or two … it’s all of this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many components such as your web server, your website, and various third-party sites and/or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved in more detail.
Configuring Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your web server that affect how your site will handle 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 beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your site will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwanted traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like integrating 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 emails, page errors, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites and services.
External Web Properties And Services – Configuration
The concept behind choosing external sites is that all of your content is posted to a central location (your site) and from there, it then gets distributed automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external platforms have been added to your traffic network, content with links pointing back to your website will be automatically syndicated to these platforms. Your site will receive added exposure online, helping you tap into a new audience and source of traffic.
Some of these sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to help speed up the process and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with useful information, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your Google Webmaster Tools account and site details have been set up, this information can be used to integrate and automate traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, traffic monitoring information can be integrated with WordPress via a simple plugin and instantly sent to many other useful applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account, the account information can be used to automate web traffic 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 website owners the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your web traffic system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need your social media and social bookmarking accounts set up in order to integrate these with your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and get new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and profile pages with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can You can syndicate your content to lots of social sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(There are loads of social sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add a feed from your WordPress blog …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your account.
There are many different sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site For Traffic
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
Your WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains an important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(WordPress 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 discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services text area
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is available …
(WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress will do the rest …
(You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
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 in this section can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to view 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 check box is enabled or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to automatically notify your update services list when new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion
Although the settings in this section 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow your site to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks Screen)
Here are some of the options for configuring your permalink URLs …
(Configuring permalinks)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress Plugin Settings – Configuration
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic to your site
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site 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, website security is something you cannot ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to botnets and hackers.
More information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving improving how search engines find and index your website …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with others online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social features to your website using WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social features to their website using free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social sharing plugins let you choose which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to protect content which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress Traffic Theme Features – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring design and layout aspects of your site, some themes also provide options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes include 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)
WordPress Traffic System Configuration – Other Steps
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can damage your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you make money online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your website complies with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business online.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
We have created a detailed article on adding compliance pages to WordPress here:
Post Categories & Post Tags
Post tags and categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your pages.
(WordPress post categories help search engines better classify and index your pages, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’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 categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Add A Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools discover more of your website content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, while an XML sitemap is mostly code that only search engine bots can read. Although search engines like Google will index your pages 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 results in increased traffic.
Your WordPress 404 Page
When online visitors enter the wrong web address or click on links pointing to pages on your website that no longer exist, they will typically be greeted with a 404 Not Found error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your web server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do to automatically bring web traffic is post great content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and external web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The expertise required to perform the configuration stage of the traffic automation process typically takes some web developers a long time to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next article in our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read more, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help site owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively using a WordPress website and proven online marketing methods.
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