Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do to automatically start generating traffic is post fresh content on a regular basis!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the automation process. We explained 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 website, and what to do if your site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. We will show you how a WordPress site should be configured in order to automatically start getting new traffic whenever you post fresh content to your web site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With competition becoming increasingly more difficult businesses are looking for every advantage they believe will help them improve their results and performance online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage over other competitors. An expertly configured website gives your business a flying start and a significant advantage online.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to describe the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
To illustrate this point here is a joke.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Everything was moving along in the gizmo factory when the equipment suddenly came to a halt.
As no one could figure out what happened, the manager decided to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert headed immediately towards the control box. After staring at the wires and circuitry for less than 3 minutes or so, the expert then produced a teensy-weensy hammer from his shirt pocket and made a gentle tap about two and half inches from the left-hand edge of the box.
Immediately, everything sprang back to life.
The floor manager was grateful and relieved as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager received a request for payment of services rendered for $5,000.
The manager called the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one in the business had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for having invested years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog fully set up so all you have to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other online properties would be automatically 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?)
Although the solution to many problems is often ridiculously easy once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts you need to set up to achieve desired outcomes
- Which options you need to configure in order to ensure that everything will function to plan, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite involved. This is because it’s not as easy as installing one or two plugins, clicking a couple of buttons, or tweaking some settings in your admin area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of many components such as your web hosting server, your website or blog, and various third-party sites or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the activities involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram of the configuration phase)
Let’s take a brief look at what’s involved.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes. What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings and options in your server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your site can attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like implementing spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step is to configure a number of third-party sites or online services.
External Accounts
The basic concept of choosing external sites is that all of your content is posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it gets distributed automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external sites to your setup, content pointing back to your site is automatically published on search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and website will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of these sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings 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:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with important data, tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account with Google, use this information to integrate and automate traffic settings 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 performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details are set up, you can add your account code to WordPress using a Google Analytics plugin and send data automatically to other applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account has been set up, you can use this information to automate traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers users a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need to set up your various 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 get new traffic to your site.
You should have accounts and profiles set up with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social sites you can set up. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select those that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online web platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add a feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your social feed.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications you can incorporate into your own web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
WordPress Configuration
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 of the important areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress administration area includes a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As stated 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 specifically configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services field
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, only one service is available …
(Writing Settings – 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 …
(Notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
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 visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to read 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 in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to instantly ping your list of update services whenever new posts are 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
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 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks enable your site to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways search-friendly URLS can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, see this tutorial: Setting Up Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every type of functionality to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is guaranteed immunity from cyberattacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your web pages …
(WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your site’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find 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 Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with members of their social networks can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing to your site easily with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Many social plugins allow you to select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress Traffic Features In Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, some themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) can be configured for better traffic results)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as clicking a few buttons to enable the feature …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can cause serious damage to your business as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you do any kind of business online (or plan to), it’s important that your website is compliant with government laws and regulations.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
Tags & Categories
Post tags and categories help to improve your site’s search optimization, which helps to increase 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 discuss and set up your website’s tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags that have been set up.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites discover your online content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although Google can index your pages just using 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 Page Not Found – An Additional Source Of Traffic!
When visitors searching for your website type in the wrong URL or click on a link pointing to a page on your website that no longer exists, they are presented with an error page …
(A 404 Not Found error page)
A 404 Not Found page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your web server, there are WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do to attract traffic is publish fresh content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many website developers a long time 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 covered in the next section of the WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively and drive traffic automatically using a WordPress-driven website and proven online marketing strategies.
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