Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new traffic automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress site, all you have to do is post content on a consistent basis to begin attracting traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at 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 things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will discuss the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. We will help you understand what makes an expertly configured site different from a professionally configured one. You will also discover just what kind of work needs to be done to make sure that when everything is fully set up and configured, new visitors will automatically start flowing when you add new content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With business getting so much more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth looking into any and every advantage that can help you increase your own competitiveness online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage. For businesses, 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 a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s one way to describe the differences:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing story.
Knowing Where To Tap
Everything is going just fine in the gizmo-making plant when things suddenly stop.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the manager decides to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert immediately heads to the control box. After staring silently at the schematics for what seems like 2 minutes or less, the expert then produces a teensy-weensy hammer from his shirt pocket and makes a very gentle tap near the left corner of the box.
Immediately, everything springs back to life.
The plant manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager receives an invoice for $5,000.
Bewildered, the factory manager dials the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them such a large amount of money 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, a bill of payment arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main 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 gizmo factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to be compensated fairly for investing years building up the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately assess and avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a blog fully set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social followers from sites like Facebook and LinkedIn and dozens of other web properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems can seem ridiculously easy once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than just installing a website and configuring a few settings. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up to get desired outcomes
- Which options you need to configure to make sure everything will function to plan, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite involved. This is because it’s not as simple as installing a piece of software, clicking on a button or two … it’s all of this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your web server, your site, and various external sites and online services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a better look at what’s involved.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings in your web server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your 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 may attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites and services.
External Accounts
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all of your content should be posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, syndicate automatically to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external services have been added to your configuration, content linked back to your site is automatically added to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your site will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some sites and online solutions 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, here are just some of the accounts you will need to have set up:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Search Console lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of useful information, tools and reports about your website.
Once your Google Webmaster Tools account is set up, use this information with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic results, SEO, marketing efforts, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, visitor tracking information can be integrated with WordPress via a plugin and instantly sent to many other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account and site details with Bing Webmaster Tools have been set up, use your details with traffic settings 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 offers the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to build a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your web traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need your social media accounts set up 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 attract new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have profiles set up with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can You can syndicate your content to loads of social sites. 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 (we will look at some of these tools in greater detail during the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging web platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add an RSS feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Distribute social content to social networks)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your own RebelMouse page.
There are many different platforms you can incorporate into your web traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
Configuring WordPress
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global WordPress Settings
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As stated in this section,
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 ping the services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(Update Services)
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
***
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 displays to users in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to get the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The most important setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables WordPress to ping the update services list whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Screen)
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 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 search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the ways permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help your site generate more traffic
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is completely immune from a cyber-attack.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to botnet and hacker attacks.
To learn more, go here:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages more indexable …
(WordPress Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your website’s search engine optimization. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content with members of their own online communities can help boost traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social sharing features to your website easily using WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social share plugins allow you to choose which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which visitors can unlock by sharing 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, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your site, many themes also give you built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With many themes, adding social sharing features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Additional Configuration Steps For Your WordPress Site
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwanted 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 any type of business online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your website stays compliant with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate online business practices.
(Does Your Site Comply With The Law?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
Post Categories & Tags
WordPress post tags & categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.
(Categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post categories and tags should be discussed and set up earlier on, 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.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
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 sites discover your site’s content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Only search engines can interpret XML sitemaps. Although Google will index your site 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 type in the wrong web address into their browser or click on a dead link, they are presented with a 404 error page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up in your server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your site expertly configured and fully set up, all you then need to do is post fresh content regularly to start driving traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different components and web properties …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration process can take many website developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Section 3
To keep reading about this topic, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help you learn how to grow your business and drive traffic organically with a WordPress website and proven online marketing methods.
Want To Get Automatically Notified When New WordPress Tutorials Are Published? Then Subscribe Using The Form Below!
***
"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
***