Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated web traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to automatically begin attracting web traffic is post fresh content regularly!)
In Part Two, we focused on the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. You will understand what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different, and just what type of work is required to ensure that when all is set up and configured, visitors will automatically start flowing simply by consistently adding fresh content on your site.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With competition making business survival progressively tougher businesses are exploring any advantage available to get better results online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous competitive advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website means having a significant advantage from the very beginning.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s one way to describe the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this here’s an amusing anecdote.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Everything is going just fine in the gizmo workshop when things grind to a sudden 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 walks to the control box. After staring silently at the wiring diagrams for no more than 5 minutes, the expert then produces a teeny-weeny hammer and makes a very gentle tap about one inch from the bottom-right side of the box.
Immediately, everything starts working as before.
The plant manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager receives a request for payment of services rendered for $5,000.
Feeling furious, the factory manager picks up the phone and dials the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them such a large amount of money for so little time spent delivering a minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive visitors to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one on the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to be compensated fairly for spending years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to avert a very serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a web site set up and configured so all you had to do is publish content to it 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 driving traffic to your site?)
Although the solution to many challenges is often quite simple once implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than just installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up and activate to achieve certain outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure to make sure things function as envisioned, 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. The reason why is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a solution, clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your server, your website or blog, and various external sites …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplified flowchart showing the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved in more detail.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings and options in your server that affect how your website will handle web traffic …
(During 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 web traffic you may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include looking at things like integrating spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites.
External Services
The concept behind adding external sites is that all content will get published from one central location (your site) and from there, it will radiate outwards automatically to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external sites into your configuration, content with links pointing back to your site is automatically syndicated to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your business will then receive increased exposure online, helping your business tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the third-party web properties and online solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to help 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 Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential data, tools and reports about your website.
Once your Google Search Console account is set up, the account information can be used with traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account and site details, you can add traffic tracking information to all of your pages in WordPress using a simple Google Analytics plugin and feed data automatically to other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account, the details can be used with web traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers both a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional online 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 explain how to integrate these features into your automated web traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media 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 attract new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have pages set up with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick those that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(You can post your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add an RSS feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your website.
There are various technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your own web traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to website owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
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 configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the list of update services entered into the Update Services section
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
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 …
(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 on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could play a part in someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to view 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 traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Normally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to ping your update services list whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion
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 Section)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks enable WordPress to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your permalinks …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
We have created a detailed tutorial about using permalinks here: Changing WordPress Permalinks
Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of securing your web sites.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and botnets.
For more information, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving improving how search engines like Google and Bing find, classify and index your web pages …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines to find, classify and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help boost 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 WordPress plugins)
There are loads of free or inexpensive social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
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 followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to protect content which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring design and layout elements of your website, many themes also include built-in options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes include built-in traffic optimization features)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your content is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Configuring Other Areas Of WordPress For Improved Traffic Results
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with 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 any kind of business online (or plan to), you need to make sure that your site is found to comply with government legal requirements.
(Is Your Site Legally Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article about how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your website here:
Post Categories & Post Tags
WordPress tags and post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your web pages.
(Categories help search engines index your pages, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your website’s post categories and tags during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits.
Visitor Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. HTML site maps provide visitors with a visual map of how your content is structured, while XML sitemaps are code that only search engine bots can interpret. Although Google will index your pages just from 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 404 Page Not Found
When online visitors enter the wrong URL or click on links pointing to pages on your website that no longer exist, they will typically be presented with an error page (known as a 404 Not Found page) …
(A 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do to start attracting web traffic is post fresh content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform this stage of the traffic automation process can take many website developers months to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next section of our WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read the rest of this article, click here:
This article is part of an article series designed to help business owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven online marketing strategies.
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