Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a website into an automated web traffic generating machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is publish new content on a regular basis to automatically start generating new traffic!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase of this process. We explained 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 website, and what to do if your existing site was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this article, we look at the configuration stage of this process. The focus of this section is to help you understand why an expertly configured WordPress site is different from a professionally configured website, and how much work needs to be done to make sure that when everything is set up and fully configured, you will drive traffic automatically when you publish fresh content to your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With competition making business survival progressively tougher businesses are looking for any and every advantage they can that can help you improve their performance online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start from the moment 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 website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to explain the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing little story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Everything was running smoothly in the gizmo-making assembly line when suddenly, things ground to a stop.
As no one could figure out what went wrong, the manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrived and immediately walked towards the main control box. After staring silently at the schematics for no more than 5 minutes or so, the expert then produced a teensy-weensy hammer and made a gentle tap near the right-hand side of the control unit.
Immediately, everything came back to life.
The plant manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager received an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
The factory manager called the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay such an exorbitant fee for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work and promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the factory stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one in the business had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to demand fair compensation for having invested years developing the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to repair a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog fully set up so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networks and dozens of other web properties would be automatically 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 attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems often seems quite easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to work things out.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to get various functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party accounts you need to set up and activate to achieve specific results
- Which settings need to be configured to make sure everything will work how you have planned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a solution, clicking a couple of buttons, or tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and so much more.
The configuration phase is a process that involves your web server, your website, and a number of external sites and online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simplified diagram of the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at these areas.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for site installation purposes. What we are talking about, is tweaking settings in your server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your website will attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess and 404 redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites.
Third-Party Services
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all of your content is posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it gets automatically distributed to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external services to your system, content with links pointing back to your website is automatically published on these platforms. Your content and site will benefit from exposure online, helping you tap into new sources of traffic.
Some third-party sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress 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 before configuring your WordPress site’s settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with useful information, tools, and reports about their website.
Once your account and site data have been set up, your details can be used with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your up your Google Analytics account and entered your site details, you can add traffic tracking code to WordPress using a simple plugin and send data instantly to many other online applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. Once your account has been with Bing have been set up, the account information can be used to automate traffic settings and notifications 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 website owners 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 business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated web traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social accounts before you can integrate these with 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 get new traffic to your site.
You should have pages set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools (we discuss some of these tools in greater detail during the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse social feed.
There are various platforms you can incorporate into your own web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress 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
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains an important and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Screen)
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 purposely configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence traffic. For example, your choice 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 affect someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog 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.
The main setting here as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to ping various update services when new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
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 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 Section)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your site’s permalink URLs …
(Configuring post permalinks)
To learn more about setting up permalinks, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress Traffic Generation Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every kind of functionality to your site, including traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is guaranteed immunity from cyber-attacks.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and bots.
More info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(WP Plugins For SEO – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to index, it also lets you specify how to present your content to Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social features to their website using WordPress plugins.
Many social sharing plugins allow you to specify 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 plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
WP Traffic Features In Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
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 search optimization and site linking structure for faster indexing, add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure settings for better traffic results)
With a number of WordPress themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as clicking a few buttons to enable the function …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Settings For More Traffic Results
Last but not least in the configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Legal Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site complies with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?)
We have created a detailed article about why it’s important to have a legally compliant website here:
Tags And Post Categories
Tags & categories help to improve your site’s search optimization, which helps you get more traffic.
(Categories help search engines classify and index your pages, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your website’s post categories and tags during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal results.
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 for users, it can also help external applications discover more of your online content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Your Site’s 404 Page Not Found
When visitors searching for your site type in the wrong URL or click on an invalid link, they are presented with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 error page) …
(Default WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 Not Found page can be configured to funnel visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up in your server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your website has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do to attract more web traffic is post great content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform this process can take many website developers months to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read more, click here:
This article is part of a comprehensive tutorial series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively with a WordPress-powered website and proven online marketing methods.
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