Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive traffic automatically 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 website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to automatically begin bringing traffic is publish web content on a regular basis!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase of the automation process. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration stage of the traffic system. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that new visitors will automatically start flowing when you start publishing web content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With competition making business survival increasingly more difficult businesses are researching every advantage they can that can help you increase their competitiveness online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous competitive advantage. With an expertly configured WordPress site, your business has an immediate competitive advantage from the very beginning.
Configuration 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 has to offer.
Here’s a simple way to describe the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take more labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with a little story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Things are moving along in the widget assembly line when everything grinds to a sudden halt.
No one can figure out what’s gone wrong and so the manager decides to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert heads immediately towards the main control box. After staring silently at the box for about 2 minutes, the expert then takes out a little hammer from his pocket and makes a very gentle tap near the right-hand corner of the box.
Immediately, everything returns once more to normal.
The floor manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager receives a request for payment of services rendered for $5,000.
Confused and bewildered, the factory manager picks up the phone and calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged so much for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives and is placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive web traffic consistently to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for years spent building up the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WordPress blog set up so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social followers from sites like Facebook and LinkedIn and dozens of other web 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 driving traffic to your website?)
Although the solution to many problems often seems quite simple in hindsight, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which services you need to set up and activate to get certain results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured in order to make sure processes will run as envisioned, etc.
(Driving 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 so technically difficult, it can be quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing a piece of software, clicking a button … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your web server, your web site, and a number of third-party sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we were to create a simplified flowchart showing all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine what’s involved in more detail.
Configuring The Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings in your web-hosting account specifically for handling web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your business can attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like configuring server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and online services.
Configuring External Sites
The idea behind adding external sites is that all of your content will get posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get automatically distributed to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external services have been added to your network, content pointing back to your website will be automatically published on search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and business will be given additional exposure to a new audience and new sources of traffic.
Some of these sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress settings to speed up the process 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:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential information, SEO tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your Google Search Console account is set up, you can use your account information to automate web traffic 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 traffic results, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up Google Analytics, you can add traffic monitoring information to WordPress via a simple plugin and send data instantly to many other useful applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account has been set up, you can use this information with traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to build a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your web traffic generation system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need your social media and social bookmarking accounts set up before you can 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 and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site.
You should have profiles with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we will cover some of these tools in more detail during the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to loads of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add a feed from your WordPress site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute social content to social networks)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your social feed.
There are many different sites and platforms that can be incorporated into your own traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up third-party site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress – Global Settings
Your WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings)
As described in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have specifically configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the list of update services entered into the Update Services box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(You can 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 on this page can influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your site to get 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 main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically notify the update services list whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion
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 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
Here are some of the options for configuring your permalink URLs …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
If you need help setting up WordPress permalinks, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress – Traffic Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more visitors to your site
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is guaranteed immunity from being hacked.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and botnets.
Go here for more info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a 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 to index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Most social plugins allow you to choose which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which visitors can unlock by liking your page.
WP Traffic Generation Theme Features
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 the design and layout of your site, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Areas
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic blueprint configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can seriously affect your business as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you are making money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With The Law?)
We have created a detailed article about adding legal pages to WordPress here:
Tags And Categories
WordPress post tags & post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better organize and index your pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s post tags and post categories during the Website Planning Stage.
When configuring your website to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and categories you have set up.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
A visitor site map that displays all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites 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. Only search engines can interpret an XML sitemap. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Forget This!
When visitors searching online for your website enter the wrong web address into their web browser or click on a link pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they are greeted with an error page (known as a 404 page) …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up in your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do to attract new web traffic is publish new content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many website professionals months to learn.
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 addressed in the next article in our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part 3
To continue reading, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive tutorial series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online and drive traffic organically using a WordPress-driven website and proven online marketing strategies.
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"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie
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