Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is add great content on a consistent basis to automatically begin attracting more traffic!)
In Part Two, we focused on the setup phase of the traffic automation process. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will look at the configuration phase of this process. You will learn how to configure a WordPress site to automatically bring new traffic as you begin adding fresh content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Also, the business landscape is becoming increasingly more competitive and businesses are exploring every advantage available to improve their performance online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous competitive advantage. An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a significant competitive advantage from the very start.
The Configuration Process Is 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 an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here’s a simple way to understand 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 website gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only is more work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this here’s an amusing little story.
Knowing Where To Tap
All was going well in the gizmo factory when everything suddenly stopped working.
No one could figure out what has happened and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert.
The expert arrived soon afterward and, without saying a word, immediately went towards the main control box. After staring at the electronic components for 2 minutes or so, the expert then produced a teensy-weensy hammer from his pocket and made a single tap about three and half cm from the left side of the control unit.
Immediately, the assembly line sprang back to life.
The plant manager was greatly relieved as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received an invoice for $5,000.
The factory manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged such a ludicrous fee for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrived in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive new traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to get paid fairly for years spent building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to immediately assess and avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog configured so all you ever had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube 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?)
While experts often make difficult solutions look simple, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to work things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring a few settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party accounts need to be set up to get desired results
- Which options need to be configured to make sure everything functions as planned, etc.
(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 difficult, it can be quite involved and complicated. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing and configuring one or two plugins, clicking a button, or tweaking some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your site, and various external sites and/or online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram of the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine what’s involved.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your web hosting account specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your hosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your site can attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage 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 could include things like integrating spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites and online services.
External Accounts
The basic idea of setting up external sites is that all content should be published to one central location (your site) and from there, get automatically distributed to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external services have been added to your setup, content with links pointing back to your site gets automatically syndicated to these platforms, indexed by search engines and distributed to social media sites, even to visitors attracted to the platform itself. Your content and site will receive added exposure online, helping you tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the third-party sites and solutions will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site 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 Webmasters
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of important information, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site data, this information can be used to integrate and automate traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up Google Analytics, account information can be added to all web pages in WordPress via a Google Analytics plugin and and sent to various other useful applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account, use your account information with traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress provides users with a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning 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 show you how to integrate this into your web traffic system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your social accounts 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 and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have accounts set up with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, 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 choose those that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools (we will cover some of these tools in greater detail during the Automation phase).
(There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your account.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications you can incorporate into your web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these further, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site For Traffic
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 key areas.
Global WordPress Settings
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Section)
As described below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have purposely chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the list of services entered into the Update Services text area
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is available …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
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 have an influence traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website to get 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 your traffic system is concerned, however, the main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to instantly ping various update services when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Section)
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 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your site’s search-friendly URLS …
(Configuring permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every type of functionality to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more visitors to your site
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your 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, web security is something you simply cannot afford to 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 bots.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO Plugin)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (formerly known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find, crawl and index, it allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can add social features to your website easily with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social plugins allow you to specify 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 likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring layout and design aspects of your website, some themes also provide built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) have built-in traffic optimization features)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons to your site is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to configure your settings and enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic Configuration – Other Things To Consider
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website 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 situations that can hurt your business when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do business online, it’s important that your site is compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate business practices online.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?)
We have written a detailed article on why it’s important to have a compliant website here:
Categories & Post Tags
Categories and post tags help search engines index your pages, which helps to increase traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your web pages.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post tags and categories should be set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories that have been set up.
A Site Map Of Your Pages and Posts
A site map that displays all of your posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications discover more of your online content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
It’s important to note that 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, whereas an XML sitemap is code that only search bots can understand. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just from 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.
Don’t Forget Your Site’s 404 Error Page
When visitors type in the wrong web address or click on a link pointing to a page on your website that no longer exists, they will normally be presented with a 404 Not Found page …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured to funnel visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 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 dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do then to start generating traffic is publish web content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take some 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 covered in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Three
To continue reading about this topic, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively using a WordPress website and proven online marketing methods.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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