Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your site into an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is add fresh content consistently to automatically begin bringing web traffic!)
In Part 2, we focused on critical setup decisions. 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 has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration stage of this process. The focus of this section is to help you understand why an expertly configured site is different from a professionally configured site. You will also understand how much work is required to ensure that when everything is fully set up and configured, you can automatically start to get new visitors just by publishing web content to your site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business getting ever more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth exploring any advantage that can help you improve your results online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage over the competition. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start from the moment their website is launched.
The Configuration Stage Is What Makes The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to describe the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Allow me to illustrate this point with a joke.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Things are going fine in the widget-making workshop when all of a sudden, everything just stops.
No one can figure out what went wrong and so the manager decides to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert walks straight towards the main control box. After staring silently at the control unit for about 5 minutes or less, the expert then produces a tiny hammer from his tool box and makes a very gentle tap near the bottom-right side of the box.
Immediately, all machinery in the assembly plant starts working again.
The plant manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Furious, the factory manager picks up the phone and dials the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them such a large amount of money for less than five minutes work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the plant stand to lose when production stopped working and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to get paid fairly for spending years developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a website fully set up so all you ever had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other web 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 site?)
Although the solution to many problems can seem ridiculously easy once implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to add various functionalities to your site.
- Which services you need to set up to get specific results
- Which options you need to configure to ensure that processes will work as expected, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite involved. This is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring one or two plugins, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration phase is a complex process that involves your server, your website, and various external sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine what’s involved in more detail.
Server Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings and options in your server that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(In 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 web traffic your business will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like implementing server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to set up and configure a number of third-party sites and services.
Configuring External Sites
The basic concept of setting up external sites is that all content is posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it then gets distributed automatically to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external services into your configuration, content linking back to your site is automatically posted to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and business will be exposed to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some web properties and online platforms will need to have accounts set up before configuring your settings to speed up the configuration 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 Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with important information, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site details are set up, your account details can be used with web traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, marketing activities, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, you can add traffic monitoring information to WordPress using a simple plugin and feed data instantly to various other useful applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account and entering site details, the account details can be used with web traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social media accounts in order to 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 and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site.
You should set up accounts with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can set up accounts with and post your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select those that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we will review some of these tools in more detail during the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to many social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
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 website.
There are many different solutions you can add to your own traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website Or Blog For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
WordPress Settings
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings section 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 traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As stated below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have purposely configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services text box
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section includes only one entry …
(WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(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
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 to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your 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 most important setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to notify your update services list when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
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 sites 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 Section)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings enable WordPress to publish posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways your search-friendly URLS can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: Improve Your WordPress SEO With SEO-Friendly URLs
Configuring Settings – WP Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add just about every type of functionality to your website, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief 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 WordPress site for dealing with 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, you simply cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your site.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and botnets.
Go here for more details:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages more search engine friendly …
(WP Plugins For SEO – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your site’s search engine optimization. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find, crawl and index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing features to your website with WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social features to their site using free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social sharing plugins allow you to specify which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which users can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring Settings – WP Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring design and layout aspects of your site, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) allow you to configure settings and options for better traffic results)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure For Better Traffic Results
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you make money online, you need to ensure that your site is compliant with all regulations.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your site, go here:
Post Tags And Categories
Post categories & tags help to improve your site’s search optimization, which improves traffic.
(WordPress categories help to improve your site’s SEO, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s post tags and categories during the Website Planning Process.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and categories that have been set up.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications discover your website content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although Google can index your site just from 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.
404 Error Page – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When visitors enter the wrong web address or click on a dead hyperlink, they will typically be greeted with an error page …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
A 404 Not Found page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do to generate traffic is post great content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration stage of the traffic automation process typically takes many website professionals months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is explained in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part Three
To continue reading, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic automatically with a WordPress-driven website and proven web marketing strategies.
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