WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Part 3 (Configuration)

This is part 3 of a 5-part series on how to create an automated traffic generation system for your WordPress site. In this tutorial, you will learn how to configure the essential settings of the WordPress automated traffic system.

Web Site Traffic Blueprint Part Three - How To Automatically Increase Your Traffic For Your Business

Welcome to Part Three 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 1 of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …

With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is post content regularly to bring more web traffic!

(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is publish new content on a regular basis to automatically generate web traffic!)

In Part 2, we discussed critical setup decisions. We helped you understand 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 site was built using WordPress.

Where to set up WordPress on your domain

(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)

In this article, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. We will help you understand why an expertly configured WordPress site is different. You will also learn how much work is required to make sure that when everything is fully configured, you can automatically attract new traffic as you start to post fresh content on your web site.

WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration

Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive on a global scale and are exploring any advantage available to increase their competitiveness online.

The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage over the competition. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off to a flying start as soon as their website is launched.

The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured

There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.

Here’s a simple way to describe the difference:

With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence plus online business marketing automation!

A professional site gives you a web presence, but an expertly configured website gives you a web presence with online business marketing automation.

(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)

Not only does it take more work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.

Let’s illustrate this with a story.

Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …

Things were going well in the widget assembly plant when everything came to a sudden stop.

No one could figure out what has happened and so the floor manager decided to call in an expert.

Promptly after arriving, the expert headed immediately towards the control box. After staring silently at the wiring board for no more than 3 minutes or so, the expert then took out a little hammer and made a very gentle tap near the top-right side of the box.

Immediately, the whole workshop lit up and returned once again to normal.

The floor manager was grateful and relieved as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.

A few days later, the manager received a request of payment for services rendered for $5,000.

The factory manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why he had charged them so much for less than five minutes work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.

The next day, an invoice arrived in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:

ExpertCo Invoice

The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving new traffic to their sites.

How much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the machines stopped working and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to be compensated fairly for years spent building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and avert a crisis?

Similarly, if you could have your website or blog configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would you save?

How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?

(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)

Although the solution to many problems may seem ridiculously simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.

Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than just installing a website and configuring a few internal settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:

  • Which programs you need to install to add desired functionalities to your site.
  • Which 3rd-party services you need to set up and activate to get certain outcomes
  • Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to make sure things function the way you have envisioned, etc.

Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise

(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)

Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite involved. This is because it’s not as easy as installing a piece of software, tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area or clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and so much more.

Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your server, your web site, and various external sites or online services …

The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings

(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)

If all the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …

A simplified flowchart of the configuration phase

(A simplistic diagram showing the steps involved in the configuration process)

Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.

Web Hosting

We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is configuring settings in your server that affect how you will handle web traffic …

During the configuration stage, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic

(During the configuration stage, your web hosting account 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 may attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.

This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for both bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like integrating server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …

Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page  error redirects, etc?

(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)

After your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step is to set up and configure a number of third-party sites and/or online solutions.

External Sites

The idea behind choosing external sites is that all of your content is posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it then gets automatically distributed to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.

Third-Party Services

Once you incorporate these external platforms into your setup, content linked back to your site gets automatically fed to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social networks, even to users of the platform itself. Your content and business will be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.

External Web Properties & Solutions - Configuration

Some external web properties and online solutions will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress 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 WordPress settings:

Google Webmaster Tools

Google Search Console

(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website)

Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with important data, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.

After setting up your account and entering site data, your details can be used with web traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics

(Google Analytics)

Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrers, etc.

Once your Google Analytics account and site data have been set up, tracking information can be added to all of your web pages in WordPress via a plugin and instantly sent to many other useful applications.

Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing Data And Tools

(Bing Data And Tools)

Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account and site details with Bing have been set up, the information can be used to automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com

(WordPress.com)

As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers both a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional online presence.

WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.

Social Media Pages

Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site

(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site)

You will need your social media accounts set up in order to 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 and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site.

Make sure you have accounts and pages set up with all of the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.

Social Media

There are lots of social sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will cover some of these tools in more detail further below and in the Automation phase).

You can post your content to many social sites.

(There are loads of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)

Additional Services, RSS Aggregators, Etc.

There are many online technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans.

For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add a feed from your site …

RebelMouse

RebelMouse

(RebelMouse)

RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your own RebelMouse website.

Practical Tip

There are various 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 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 site’s settings.

WordPress Traffic Configuration

The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.

Let’s go over some key areas.

Global WordPress Settings

Your WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …

WordPress settings menu

(WordPress settings section)

General Settings

Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …

Settings Menu - General Settings

(Settings Menu – General Settings Section)

Writing Settings

The Writing Settings section contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked traffic notification systems available to website owners …

WordPress Settings - Writing Settings

(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Screen)

As described in this section,

When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …

Unless you or your webmaster have specifically chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services text area

With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section includes only one entry …

Update Services - A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress

(Writing Settings – Update Services)

You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section and WordPress will do the rest …

WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically!

(You can notify dozens of update services automatically!)

Useful Info

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 visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.

The syndication settings in this section can influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears 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 blog to read the rest of the content from excerpts, 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 main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.

Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to instantly ping your list of update services whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unticked …

WordPress Settings - Reading Settings Screen

(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Screen)

Discussion Settings

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 …

Settings Menu - Discussion Settings

(Global Settings – Discussion Settings Section)

Permalink Settings

Permalinks allow you to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …

WordPress Settings - Permalink Settings

(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)

Here are some of the options for configuring your site’s permalink URLs …

Configuring post permalinks

(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)

For a detailed tutorial about setting up WP permalinks, go here: Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs

WordPress – Plugin Settings

The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.

Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples

Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin

Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, website security is something you simply cannot ignore.

Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)

Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.

To learn more, go here:

WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO

SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages easy for search engines to index …

WordPress Plugin - Yoast SEO

(SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)

A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your site’s SEO. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.

WordPress Social Sharing Plugins

Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds real value to readers.

You can easily add social sharing to your website with WordPress plugins

(You can add social sharing features to your website easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)

WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.

Many social plugins let you choose which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social share plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which users 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 help grow your site’s traffic.

For example, as well as options and settings for configuring design and layout elements of your site, some themes also give you options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …

Many WordPress themes come with built-in traffic optimization features

(Many themes can be configured for improved traffic results)

With a number of themes, adding social sharing features to your pages is as easy as clicking a few buttons to enable the feature …

Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button

(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)

Other Areas To Configure

Last but not least in the WordPress traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.

These include:

Legal Web Pages

Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and unwanted traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.

If you are making money online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies.

Is Your Site Legally Compliant?(Is Your Site Legally Compliant?)

To learn more about why it’s important to have a compliant website, refer to this article:

Post Tags & Post Categories

Post tags and categories help search engines better classify and index your pages, which helps you get more traffic.

WordPress post categories help search engines index your website, which helps to increase traffic.

(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your pages.)

As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your site’s post categories and tags during the Website Planning Stage.

When considering ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits.

Add A Site Map

A visitor site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools find more of your site’s content …

(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)

(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)

Tip

It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Only search engine bots can read an XML sitemap. Although search engines like Google can index your site 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 can result in increased traffic.

404 Page – Don’t Forget This!

When online visitors type in the wrong web address or click on links pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they will typically be greeted with a 404 error page …

A 404 Error Page

(A 404 Page)

Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …

Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.

(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)

Practical Tip

Although a 404 error page can be set up on your server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.

WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary

Once you have your WordPress site fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then to automatically begin bringing more web traffic is publish new content on a regular basis.

The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various elements and external web properties …

WordPress Traffic Blueprint - Configuration Checklist

(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)

Important

The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration stage of the traffic automation process can take many web developers a long time to learn.

Once you have expertly 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 Section 3

To keep reading this article, click on the link below:

Web Site Traffic Blueprint Part 3 - Learn How To Grow Your Web Visitors For Your Business Using WordPress

Important Info

This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help small business owners learn how to grow their business online and drive traffic sustainably using a WordPress-powered website and proven web marketing strategies.

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