Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to automatically attract new web traffic is add web content on a consistent basis!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase of the automation process. We explained the best way to get started 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 using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration phase of this process. We will help you understand why an expertly configured WordPress site is different, and what type of work needs to be done to ensure that when all is fully set up and configured, you will get new traffic automatically simply by regularly posting fresh content to your site.
WordPress Traffic Automation System – Configuration Phase
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive worldwide and are researching any advantage they believe will improve their results and performance online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage over the competition. With an expertly configured website, your business has an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
The Difference Is In The Configuration Process
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to describe the main difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only is additional work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
Let me illustrate this with a little story.
A Semi-True Story …
Things are running smoothly in the widget assembly workshop when production suddenly stops.
No one can figure out what is wrong and so the manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrives and walks immediately towards the control box. After staring at the box for 5 minutes or less, the expert then produces a little hammer and makes a gentle tap about 1 cm from the top-left side of the control unit.
Immediately, everything comes back to life.
The floor manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager receives a service bill for $5,000.
With a sense of outrage, the factory manager rings the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged such a large amount of money for less than 5 minutes work, he promptly 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 #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one on the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for years spent building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to quickly avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress website or blog configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social followers from sites like Facebook and LinkedIn and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be automatically 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?)
While many experts often make complex situations and problems look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires 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 you need to install to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which services you need to set up and activate to achieve specific outcomes
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to make sure things function how you have planned, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. It’s not just about installing and configuring a piece of software, clicking on a button or two, or configuring some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your WordPress site, and a number of external 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 something like this …
(A simplistic diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Your Server – Configuration
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). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your site will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like configuring server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess and 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to configure a number of external sites and services.
External Web Properties And Services – Configuration
The basic concept of adding external sites is that all of your content should be posted to one central location (your site) and from there, be distributed automatically to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external sites into your system, content linking back to your website will get automatically posted to these platforms, indexed by search engines and shared to other social sites, even to users of the platform itself. Your content and website will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some sites and online solutions will need to be set up before configuring your site 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:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of essential information, tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site details with Google, you can use the information to integrate and automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details are set up, you can add traffic tracking information to all of your pages in WordPress using plugins and feed data automatically to many other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account and site details with Bing Webmaster Tools are set up, you can use the account information with traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers both the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, 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 web traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social accounts set up before you can 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 bring new visitors to your site.
You should have profiles with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose those that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we discuss some of these tools in greater detail during the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to lots of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, 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 a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your page.
There are many different solutions that can be incorporated into your web traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
Configuring Your WordPress Site For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As stated in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section includes only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – 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 traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, 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 excerpts, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting here as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to instantly notify various update services when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion
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)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings enable your site to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WP Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can improve traffic generation
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is completely immune from being attacked by hackers.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bots and hackers.
To learn more, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your site more search engine friendly …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social sharing to your website easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website using WordPress plugins.
Many social share plugins let you specify which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which users can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring Settings – Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring design and layout aspects of your website, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for improved traffic results)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons and enabling the feature …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic Configuration – Other Don’t Forget These
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you make money online, you need to ensure that your website complies with all government legal requirements.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, go here:
Post Categories & Tags
WordPress post tags & categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your website.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your web pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your site’s post tags and post categories during the Website Planning Process.
When looking at ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags that have been set up.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A site map that displays all of your site’s posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications find more of your website content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, while an XML sitemap is mostly just a bunch of code that only search engine bots can interpret. Although search engines like Google can index your site just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When online visitors type in the wrong web address into their browser or click on a dead link, they are greeted with a 404 page …
(A 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up on your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do is post fresh content consistently to automatically attract traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different components and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of skills and knowledge involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some website professionals a long time to acquire.
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 covered in the next section of the WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Part Three
To keep reading this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help small business owners learn how to grow their business online with a WordPress-driven website and proven online marketing methods.
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