Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to begin bringing traffic is post fresh content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase. We explained the best way to get started 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 existing website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured in order to start driving traffic automatically simply by consistently posting new content on your web site.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Also, the business landscape is becoming ever more competitive worldwide and businesses are exploring any and every opportunity they can to improve their performance online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a huge advantage. For business owners, an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start from the moment their website is launched.
The Configuration Stage 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 web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to describe the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing little story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All was humming along in the gizmo manufacturing plant when things suddenly ground to a halt.
No one could figure out what happened and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Promptly after arriving, the expert headed immediately towards the control box. After staring silently at the circuit board for no more than 3 minutes, the expert then took out a teeny-weeny hammer and made a single tap about 3 cm from the left corner of the box.
Immediately, the machinery started working again.
The manager was overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
The factory manager called the expert, demanding to know why they were charged so much for less than 5 minutes work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving new visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the business was able to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to get paid fairly for having invested years developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly assess and fix a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your web site fully set up and configured so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social sites and dozens of other online properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
Although the solution to many challenges often seems quite simple once implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than simply installing a website and configuring basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed to add various functionalities to your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up and activate to get specific results
- Which settings need to be configured to make sure everything works as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not technically challenging, but it’s quite complicated. It’s not as simple as installing and configuring a plugin, tweaking some options and settings in your admin area or clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your web hosting server, your website or blog, and various third-party sites and services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we create a simplified flowchart showing all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these steps in more detail.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your business may attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like integrating server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step is to set up and configure various external sites.
Third-Party Solutions
The idea behind adding external sites is that all of your content will get published from one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will be automatically distributed to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external sites have been added to your configuration, content linked back to your website will be automatically published on search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and site will benefit from added exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of these web properties and online services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings to speed up the configuration process 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 WordPress site:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with important data, SEO tools and reports about your website.
Once your account and site details are set up, the account information can be used to automate traffic settings and notifications 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 results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up Google Analytics, your account information can be easily integrated with WordPress using a plugin used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account and site details are set up, you can use your details to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO 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 version if you plan to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your automated traffic system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social media and social bookmarking accounts set up before you can configure these as part of 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 accounts and bring new traffic to your site.
Set up profiles with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can post your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose the ones that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging web platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
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 page.
There are many different sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your own web traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website Or Blog
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Global Settings
The WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Section)
As described in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services section
By default, this section displays only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(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 in this section can 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 blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to view the rest of the content from a partial feed, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to automatically ping various update services whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion Settings
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 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)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks Screen)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your site’s post permalinks …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using permalinks here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
Configuring WordPress Traffic Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is safe from being hacked.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to bots and hackers.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving improving the way search engines like Google and Bing find, classify and index your website …
(WP SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social features to your website with free or inexpensive plugins)
You can easily add social features to your site with WordPress plugins.
Most social share plugins let you choose which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes allow you to configure options and settings for better traffic results)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing features to your site is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure For Increased Traffic Flow
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in visitor 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 do business online (or plan to), it’s important that your site complies with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
To learn more about how to quickly add legal pages to your WordPress website, go here:
WordPress Tags & Post Categories
Post categories & post tags help search engines better organize and index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(Categories help search engines index your web pages, which improves traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s tags and categories should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Phase.
When looking at ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover more of your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
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 code that only search engines can read. Although Google will index your site just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Your 404 Page
When visitors searching for your website enter the wrong web address or click on a dead link, they are greeted with a 404 error page …
(A 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(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 web server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do then to automatically bring traffic is publish great content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different components and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many website professionals a long time to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next section of the WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of an article series designed to help site owners learn how to grow their business and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress-driven website and proven web marketing methods.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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