Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive new traffic automatically to your website using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to generate web traffic is add great content consistently!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress web site on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will look at the configuration phase of the traffic blueprint. We explain how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that web traffic will automatically start flowing simply by publishing fresh content on your site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to attract more visitors 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 available to get better results online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous competitive advantage. With an expertly configured WordPress site, you have a significant competitive advantage from the very beginning.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is a simple way to describe the difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence plus an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take extra labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Let me illustrate this with a story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All was moving along in the gizmo manufacturing plant when all of a sudden, things ground to a stop.
No one could figure out what happened and so the manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and, without saying a word, headed immediately towards the main control box. After staring silently at the circuit board for no more than 2 minutes, the expert then took out a little hammer from his tool belt and made a gentle tap about 3 inches from the left corner of the control unit.
Immediately, everything came back to life.
The manager was filled with joy as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The factory manager picked up the phone and dialed the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged so much for so little time delivering such minimal amount of work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is driving new traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the plant stand to lose when production stopped functioning and no one in the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to ask to be compensated fairly for years spent acquiring the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to immediately avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your website set up and configured so all you had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other online properties would be instantly 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 driving traffic to your website?)
Although many experts often make complex solutions look simple, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get certain functionalities on your site.
- Which third-party accounts you need to set up and activate to get desired outcomes
- Which options you need to configure to ensure that everything will work how you have envisioned, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing a piece of software, tweaking some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase is a process that involves your server, your WP site, and various external sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simple flowchart of the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing all the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a brief look at what’s involved.
Your Server – Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for site installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your website may attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like implementing server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess and error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
Once your web server settings have been checked and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites and services.
External Services
The purpose of setting up external sites is that all content is posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it gets syndicated automatically to other parts of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After adding these external platforms to your setup, content pointing back to your site will be automatically posted to search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and site will be given additional exposure to a new audience and new sources of traffic.
Some of these external sites and online solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site to speed up the configuration process 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 Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmasters lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of essential data, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your Google Webmasters account and entering site details, use this information with web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account and site details, you can add tracking code to all of your web pages in WordPress using a simple plugin and feed data instantly to various other online applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account, use this information with web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers both a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which a number of 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 traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and drive new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social media and social bookmarking accounts set up in order to 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 get new visitors to your site.
You should set up accounts and profiles with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can post your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(You can post your content to many social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level 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 your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse social feed.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications you can incorporate into your own 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 accounts with external services, it’s time to configure your site’s 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.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As stated below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, only one service is available …
(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
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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 on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content 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 content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to read 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 here is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Normally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to instantly notify various update services 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 …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
Although discussion settings are mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to blogs linked to from your posts, 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 publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the ways your search-friendly URLS can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress – Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to improve traffic generation
Blog Defender WordPress Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is completely immune from a cyberattack.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets.
More info:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help increase traffic by improving your site’s SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social features to your website easily using free or inexpensive plugins)
You can add social features to your website easily using WordPress plugins.
Many social share plugins let you choose 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 likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to protect content which users can unlock by sharing your page.
Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your website, many themes also provide options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes allow you to configure settings and options for improved traffic results)
With many themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Features
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for both good and unwanted traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you do business online, it’s important that your site is found to comply with all government laws and regulations.
(Does Your Website Comply With The Law?)
We have created a detailed article about why it’s important to have a legally compliant website here:
WordPress Post Categories And Tags
WordPress post categories and tags help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your pages.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your website.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s post categories and tags should be set up during the Website Planning Stages.
When considering ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits and results.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites find more of your website content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although search engines like Google will index your site 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.
Don’t Forget Your 404 Error Page
When visitors enter the wrong URL or click on a dead link, they will normally be greeted with a 404 page …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up in your web server, there are several plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then to automatically start attracting web traffic is publish content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of different elements and web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration process can take some website professionals months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is covered in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively and drive traffic organically with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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