Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to automatically begin attracting new traffic is post web content on a consistent basis!)
In Part 2, we discussed critical setup decisions. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a website 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 website on your domain)
In this article, we will look at the configuration phase of the traffic system. We explain why an expertly configured WordPress site is different than a professionally configured website, and how much work needs to be done to ensure that when all is fully set up and configured, you can automatically drive traffic just by posting new content to your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by website owners as their greatest challenge online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive on a global scale and are looking for any and every advantage available to improve their results and performance online.
Having the ability to automatically generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website means having a significant advantage from the word “go”.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
There is a 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.
Here’s a simple way to describe the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
To illustrate this point here’s an anecdote.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Everything is going just fine in the widget workshop when things come to a sudden stop.
As no one can figure out what is wrong, the manager decides to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately goes to the control box. After staring at the circuit board for about 2 minutes or so, the expert then produces a little hammer and makes a single tap about two inches from the left side of the box.
Immediately, the machinery comes back to life.
The floor manager is greatly relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager receives a request for payment of $5,000.
Angrily, the manager dials the expert. Why were they expected to pay so much for less than 5 minutes work? He then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving new traffic to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have every right to demand fair compensation for years spent developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress web site set up so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networks and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be immediately notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
While the solution to many challenges is often quite simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than installing a website and configuring a few settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up to get desired results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to make sure things will work as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite involved and complicated. It’s not just about installing a plugin, tweaking some options and settings in your admin area or clicking a button … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration phase is a complex process that involves your web server, your WP site, and a number of third-party sites …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simple diagram of the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved.
Configuring The Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for installation purposes. What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings and options in your hosting account specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your webhosting 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 website may attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like configuring server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up 404 error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been checked and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites or online services.
Integration With External Solutions
The basic idea of adding external sites is that all of your content is published to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it then gets distributed automatically to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external services to your network, content linked back to your website will get automatically fed to these platforms. Your website will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of the third-party sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site to 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 site’s settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmasters lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with useful information, tools, and reports about their website.
Once your account with Google Webmaster Tools are set up, you can use this information to integrate and automate traffic-related 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 website’s results, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
After setting up your up your account and entered your site data, you can add tracking information to WordPress using a Google Analytics plugin and feed data automatically to various other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account and site data have been set up, the account details can be used to automate traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers users 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 tools, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your traffic generation system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social media and social bookmarking accounts set up in order to configure these as part of your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have accounts and profiles set up with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick those that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(You can post your content to loads of social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add a feed from your site …
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 users can follow your social feed.
There are many different sites and platforms you can incorporate into your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Global Settings – WordPress
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Global Settings – 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 intentionally chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the services entered into the Update Services box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post to this section and WordPress will do 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, choosing to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, 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 traffic is concerned, however, the most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows WordPress to notify all the update services you have specified in the Update Services area 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 …
(Global 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 content, 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 Screen)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings Screen)
The examples below show some of the ways your permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this tutorial: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With SEO-Friendly URLs
Configuring WordPress Traffic Generation Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that affect traffic generation
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your 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, securing your sites is something you cannot ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bots and hackers.
Go here for more information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(Yoast SEO – WP Plugin)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing features to your website easily with WordPress plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Most social share plugins let you select which 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 followers), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring design and layout aspects of your site, some themes also give you built-in options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure options and settings for improved traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your site is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the components that need to be set up 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 bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online, it’s important that your site remains compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
Tags And Categories
Post categories & tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your web pages.
(Categories help search engines classify and index your website, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s post tags and post categories during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories you have set up.
Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools discover your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins 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 Site’s 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching online for your website type in the wrong URL or click on an invalid hyperlink, they are presented with an error – page not found message …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your website has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you then have to do to automatically start driving traffic is publish web content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform this phase of the traffic automation process can take some website developers months to acquire.
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 addressed in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read more, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help website owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively using a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven marketing strategies that are easy to implement.
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