Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your site into an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is publish fresh content regularly to begin bringing new web traffic!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will discuss the configuration phase of the traffic blueprint. We explain how to configure a WordPress site so you can get new visitors automatically whenever you publish web content to your web site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business getting increasingly more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth exploring any advantage available to increase your own competitiveness online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage over other competitors. An expertly configured website gives you a flying start and an immediate advantage online.
The Configuration Process Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here is a simple way to understand the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a little story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All is going well in the widget assembly factory when everything comes to a sudden stop.
No one can figure out what is wrong and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
The expert arrives shortly afterward and immediately heads towards the main control box. After staring at the electronic components for 3 minutes or so, the expert then produces a teeny-weeny little hammer from his pocket and makes a single tap near the bottom-right edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything starts working once more.
The plant manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager receives an invoice for $5,000.
Feeling furious, the manager dials the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them so much for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors consistently to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the machines stopped functioning and no one on the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to demand fair compensation for having invested years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to assess and repair a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress site set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other online 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 difficult things look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to work things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring some basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts need to be set up to get certain results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured to make sure things function as you have imagined, 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 complicated. This is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a plugin, clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many parts including your server, your website or blog, and a number of third-party sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a better look at these steps.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting 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 hosting account specifically for handling web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, 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 may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like implementing server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites or online services.
External Web Properties And Accounts – Configuration
The idea behind choosing external sites is that all of your content will get posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get distributed automatically to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external services have been added to your system, content linking back to your website gets automatically posted to these platforms. Your website will then receive exposure online, helping you tap into a new audience and traffic source.
Some third-party sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings to help save time 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 site’s settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with useful data, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account with Google Webmaster Tools, this information can be used with web traffic settings 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 behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
After setting up your up your account and site details has been entered, you can add traffic monitoring code to WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and send data instantly to many other online applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account, use this information to integrate and automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers both the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your web traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need your social media accounts set up before you can integrate these with 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 sites and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts with all of the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up and syndicate your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content sharing tools (we discuss some of these tools in more detail further below and during the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to loads of social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging platforms and RSS aggregators that can act 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 site that lets you add an RSS feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your website.
There are various technologies and third-party applications that can be added to your own web traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure your site’s 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.
WordPress – Global Settings
Your WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections 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 traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As stated in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, only one service is listed …
(Writing Settings – WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(You can 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
***
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, your choice of displaying the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or 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.
As far as your traffic system is concerned, however, the most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically ping your list of update services whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings Section)
The examples below show some of the ways permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
We have created a detailed tutorial about using permalinks in WordPress here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress Plugin Settings – Configuration
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add almost every type of functionality to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to increase traffic
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site 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, securing your web sites 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 blog invisible to hackers and botnets.
More information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your web pages …
(WordPress SEO plugins help increase traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your site’s SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines to find and index, it also lets you specify how to present your content to Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can easily add social sharing to your site with free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social sharing 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 followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which users can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress Traffic Theme Settings – Configuration
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 design and layout elements of your website, many themes also include built-in options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your site is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic Automation – Additional Configuration
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
For a detailed article on how to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website or blog, refer to this article:
WordPress Post Categories And Tags
WordPress tags & categories help search engines better organize and index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(WordPress post categories help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your website’s post tags and post categories during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal results.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover more of your web content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just from 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 can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When visitors searching online for your website type in the wrong web address into their web browser or click on a dead link, they will typically be greeted with a 404 Not Found error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
A 404 page can redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do to attract more web traffic is post content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and external web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of skills and expertise required to perform the configuration process typically takes many website developers months to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is covered in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read more, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online with a WordPress-powered website and proven marketing methods that are easy and quick to implement.
Subscribe To WPCompendium.org And Get Notified When New Tutorials Get Published!
***
"I love the way your email series "Infinite Web Content Creation Training Series" is documented and presented. It is very absorbing and captivating. The links and tutorials are interesting and educational. This has motivated me to rewrite my content following the concepts I am learning from the email series." - Mani Raju, www.fortuneinewaste.com
***