Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new visitors automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do is post great content regularly to begin attracting new traffic!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing website was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will look at the configuration stage of the traffic system. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that visitors will automatically start flowing when you begin publishing web content to your website.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive on a global scale and are looking for every advantage they believe will get better results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a huge advantage over the competition. For business owners, having an expertly configured website gives WordPress users a flying start as soon as their website is launched.
Configuration Is The Difference
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 developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to understand the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress site gives you a web presence plus an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is extra work required to build and integrate 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 an amusing story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All was running smoothly in the gizmo-making assembly line when things came to a sudden stop.
As no one could figure out what happened, the manager decided to call in an expert.
The expert arrived within 30 minutes and, without uttering a word, immediately went towards the main control box. After staring at the circuit board for no more than 5 minutes, the expert then produced a tiny little hammer and made a gentle tap near the left edge of the unit.
Immediately, the assembly line returned once again to normal.
The plant manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager received an invoice for the sum of $5,000.
The factory manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a large amount of money for so little time delivering such a minimal amount of work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving visitors to their sites.
How much money did the widget plant stand to lose when production stopped working and no one on the business was able to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to ask to be compensated fairly for having spent years building up the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly assess and avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your site set up and configured 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 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 site?)
While the solution to many challenges often seems quite easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to work things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than installing a website and configuring a few internal settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which services you need to set up and activate to get desired outcomes
- Which options need to be configured to make sure everything functions as planned, etc.
(Generating web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite involved. It’s not just about installing one or two plugins, configuring some settings in your admin area or clicking on a button or two … it’s all of this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your server, your WordPress site, and a number of third-party sites …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart of the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these areas.
Your Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your webhosting account for installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your hosting account that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic your site will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both good and unwanted traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like implementing spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page error redirects, etc?)
After fine-tuning 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 online solutions.
External Sites
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all content should be published from one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, radiate outwards to other components of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external services have been added to your traffic network, content pointing back to your website is automatically syndicated to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and business will benefit from increased exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.
Some of these sites and services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site’s 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 Webmasters
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of essential data, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account is with Google have been set up, use this information with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic results, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account and site data, you can add traffic tracking code to WordPress using a Google Analytics plugin and feed data automatically to many other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account and site details are set up, use this information to integrate and automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to build a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great 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 these features into your automated web traffic system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need to set up your various social accounts 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 and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site.
You should have profiles with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can syndicate your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online web platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add an RSS feed from your site …
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 various solutions that can be incorporated into your own web traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress – Global Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu that allows you to configure your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains an important and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Section)
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 intentionally configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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
This section affects how visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence web traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog 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.
The most important setting here as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to ping the update services list whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box unchecked …
(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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the ways your site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what 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 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.
For more information, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your site more search engine friendly …
(WordPress SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously known as WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your site’s SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing buttons to your site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can add social sharing to your site easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social share plugins let you choose 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 plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which users can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress – Traffic Features In Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, many themes also provide built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for improved traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic System – Other Important Features To Configure
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic system configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices.
(Does Your Site Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
We have created a detailed article on how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your WordPress website or blog here:
Post Tags And Categories
Categories and tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your website.
(Post categories help to improve your site’s search optimization, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s categories and tags during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Visitor Site Map
A visitor site map that displays all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools discover your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although Google will index your site 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 Error Page – An Additional Source Of Web Traffic!
When visitors enter the wrong URL into their browser or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your website that no longer exists, they are greeted with a 404 Not Found error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 page can be configured to redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 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 admin.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do to automatically attract traffic is post great content on a consistent basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(WP Traffic System – 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 acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is addressed in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Part Three
To continue reading this article, click here:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials designed to help business owners learn how to grow their business online inexpensively and drive traffic sustainably with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven web marketing methods.
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