Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to begin attracting more web traffic is publish fresh content consistently!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to start 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 existing site was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this section, we will discuss the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. We will help you understand what makes an expertly configured site different. You will also understand how much work needs to be done to ensure that when all is set up and fully configured, you can bring new visitors automatically just by adding content on your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
The ability to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as their greatest challenge online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive on a global scale and are exploring every advantage they can to improve their results online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand is a tremendous advantage over other competitors. With an expertly configured website, you have a significant advantage from the word “go”.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site 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 describe the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence plus an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
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.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Everything was running smoothly in the gizmo workshop when things suddenly just stopped.
No one could figure out what happened and so the floor manager decided to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately headed towards the main control box. After staring at the wiring diagrams for 2 minutes or less, the expert then produced a tiny little hammer from his pocket and made a very gentle tap near the top-left side of the control unit.
Immediately, everything began working again.
The manager was relieved as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager received an invoice for the amount of $5,000.
The manager called the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for less than 5 minutes work and promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived and was placed in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the machines stopped working 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 ask to be compensated fairly for investing years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP site set up so all you have to do is publish new content and search engines, social sites and dozens of other online 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?)
While many experts often make complex solutions look easy, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party services you need to set up and activate to get desired results
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured to make sure processes will work to plan, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically challenging, but it’s quite involved. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing a solution, clicking on a button or two, or tweaking some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all of this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a process that involves your web hosting server, your web site, and a number of third-party sites and online services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the steps involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas in more detail.
Configuring The Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for site installation purposes. What we are talking about, is tweaking settings and options in your webhosting account that affect how your website will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, 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 your business will attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like configuring spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites and online services.
External Sites
The basic concept of choosing external sites is that all content will get published from one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will be distributed automatically to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external sites have been added to your setup, content linked back to your site is automatically added to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and website will be given exposure to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some sites 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, you will want to set up the following accounts before configuring your WordPress site:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Search Console lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential data, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
Once your account is with Google have been set up, this information can be used with web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account is set up, tracking information can be added to all web pages in WordPress via a simple plugin and instantly fed to various other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account with Bing Webmaster Tools, the information can be used with traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers users a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. 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 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 this into your automated traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and get new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social accounts set up 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 get new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have profiles set up with all the popular social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work well with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging web platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own RebelMouse account.
There are various solutions you can incorporate into your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Web Site
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 of the important areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
By default, WordPress includes a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains an important and often overlooked traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As described in 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 notify the list of services entered into the Update Services section
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section includes only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post to this section and WordPress will do the rest …
(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 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 content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your 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.
The main setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to instantly ping your list of update services whenever a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(WordPress 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 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)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings enable your site to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
For a detailed tutorial on setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: How To Configure WordPress Permalinks
WordPress Traffic Generation Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add just about every type of functionality to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to bring more visitors to your site
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No website is safe from being attacked by hackers.
(Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bots and hackers.
For more details, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages easy for search engines like Google and Bing to find and index …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your site’s SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google to index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed to Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with their friends and members of their social networks can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you post great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social features to your site easily with free or inexpensive plugins)
You can easily add social features to your website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins allow you to choose which social 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 social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress – Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring design and layout elements of your site, some themes also give you options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a free theme) include built-in traffic optimization features)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Additional Features Of WordPress For Improved Traffic
Last but not least in the WordPress traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online (or are planning to), you need to make sure that your site remains compliant with government laws and regulations.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
For a detailed article about how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website, go here:
Post Categories And Tags
WordPress tags and post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your website.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s tags and categories should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Phases.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal results.
Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools find your online content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Only search engines can read an XML sitemap. Although Google can index your site just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Configure Your WordPress 404 Page
When visitors type in the wrong URL into their web browser or click on a link pointing to a destination on your website that no longer exists, they will normally be presented with a 404 page …
(A 404 Error Page)
A 404 page can be configured to funnel traffic to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect 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 let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your website or blog expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do to automatically start generating new web traffic is publish web 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 …
(Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The skills and knowledge involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many website professionals months to acquire.
Once you have expertly 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 online and drive traffic organically using a WordPress-driven website and proven online marketing strategies.
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