Welcome to Part Three of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a site into an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One 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 blog, all you have to do to automatically begin bringing new web traffic is publish content consistently!)
In Part 2, we focused on critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section of the series, we discuss the configuration phase of the traffic automation process. We will show you why an expertly configured site is different from a professionally configured site, and how much work is required to make sure that when all is set up and configured, you can bring web traffic automatically as you start adding new content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as their greatest challenge online. With business getting ever more competitive, it’s worth exploring any opportunity you can to increase your own competitiveness online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand is a huge competitive advantage. Having an expertly configured WordPress site gives your business an immediate competitive advantage from the word “go”.
The Configuration Stage Is What Makes The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here’s a simple way to understand the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is more work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
Allow me to illustrate this point with an amusing story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
Everything is going well in the gizmo-making assembly line when suddenly, things stops.
No one can figure out what is wrong and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Soon afterward, the expert arrives and walks immediately towards the control box. After staring at the wires and circuitry for no more than 5 minutes, the expert then produces a tiny hammer from his pocket and makes a single tap about two and half cm from the right corner of the box.
Immediately, everything springs to life again.
The plant manager is overjoyed as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager receives a request of payment for services rendered for $5,000.
Bewildered, the manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why they have been charged so much for less than 5 minutes work, he then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives and is placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the business had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to get paid fairly for years spent acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to quickly repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your website or blog set up so all you had 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 site?)
While many experts often make difficult things look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to figure things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring some basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs you need to install to get specific functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party accounts you need to set up and activate to achieve desired results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured to make sure things will function as you have imagined, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. This is because it’s not as simple as installing a piece of software, tweaking some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of many components such as your server, your WP site, and various external sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine these areas in more detail.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your hosting account for website installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings in your webhosting account that affect how your site will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the traffic you will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess and 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
Once your server settings have been checked and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and services.
Third-Party Sites
The purpose of adding external sites is that all content will be 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 services.
Once these external sites have been added to your network, content with links pointing back to your website is automatically added to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and business will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some external sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your 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 Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with important information, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site data, this information can be used with traffic-related 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 performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account, you can add your account code to all of your web pages in WordPress using a simple Google Analytics plugin and feed data automatically to many other online applications and web properties.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. After setting up your account, this information can be used to automate web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers both a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful 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 these features into your web traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media pages and drive new traffic 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 sites and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have set up profiles with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can You can syndicate your content to many social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools (we discuss some of these tools in greater detail further below and during the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some are more suitable for enterprise-level applications.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add an RSS feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your account.
There are various solutions you can incorporate into your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress Site 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 key areas.
Configuring WordPress Settings
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Section)
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 intentionally configured your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services section
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section includes only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
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 will do 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 visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can influence 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 RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to view the rest of the content from summaries, 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.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to ping your update services list when 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 unchecked …
(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 blogs 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways your SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have written a detailed tutorial on using permalinks here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website 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, website security is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to attacks from hackers and botnets.
Go here for more information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your site’s SEO …
(SEO plugins help increase traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find, crawl and index, it allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site using free or inexpensive plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Most social sharing plugins let you select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social sharing plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which users can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress Theme Settings – Configuration
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 website, some themes also include options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your pages is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other Areas Of WordPress For Increased Traffic Flow
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do business online (or plan to), it’s important that your website remains compliant with government legal requirements.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
We have written a detailed article about why it’s important to have a compliant website here:
WordPress Post Tags & Categories
WordPress categories & tags help search engines index your pages, which helps to increase traffic.
(Categories help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your website’s post categories and tags 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.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools find more of your online content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although Google will index your site just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Page – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When visitors searching for your website enter the wrong URL into their web browser or click on a link pointing to an incorrect destination on your website, they are presented with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 error page) …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found error page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 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 several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do then is add great content consistently to start driving traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different components and web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The skills and expertise required to perform this stage of the traffic automation process typically takes many website developers a long time to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as can be automated. This step is covered in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Part Three
To keep reading about this topic, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business and drive traffic automatically with a WordPress-driven website and proven marketing strategies that are easy to implement.
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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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