Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is publish new content on a regular basis to automatically begin bringing web traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured in order to ensure that traffic will automatically start flowing whenever you publish content on your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive worldwide and are looking for every advantage they can to increase their competitiveness online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage. For WordPress users, an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start as soon as their website is launched.
The Configuration Process Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a web-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s a simple way to explain the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing little story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All was humming along in the widget-making factory when things suddenly came to a complete stop.
No one could figure out what has happened and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately went towards the control box. After staring silently at the wiring board for less than 3 minutes, the expert then took out a little hammer and made a gentle tap about two cm from the right corner of the unit.
Immediately, the machinery sprang back to life.
The plant manager was delighted 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 a service bill for $5,000.
The factory manager called the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay such a large amount of money for less than 5 minutes work. He promptly 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 main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive traffic to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when production stopped working and no one on the factory floor was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for having spent years building up the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to assess and fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a WP website or blog set up and configured so all you have to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube 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?)
While the solution to many challenges can seem quite easy in hindsight, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which plugins you need to install to add various functionalities to your site.
- Which 3rd-party services need to be set up and activated to get certain outcomes
- Which settings need to be configured in order to make sure everything will function to plan, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing a solution, tweaking some settings in your admin area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of many parts such as your web hosting server, your website or blog, and a number of external sites and services …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram of all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a better look at these steps.
Configuring The Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web hosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking settings in your web hosting account that affect how your website will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your website can attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for good and unwanted traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After checking your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to configure a number of external sites and services.
External Sites & Services – Configuration
The basic concept of adding external sites is that all content will be published to a central location (your site) and from there, it will be distributed automatically to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you incorporate these external services into your system, content linking back to your site will be automatically added to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and website benefits from exposure online, helping your business tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of the third-party sites and services 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, here are just some of the accounts you will need to have set up before configuring your WordPress site:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with essential data, tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account and entering site details with Google, the information can be used to automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s traffic results, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
After setting up your Google Analytics account and site data, you can add visitor tracking information to WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and feed data automatically to other online applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account and site details have been set up, use this information to integrate and automate traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which various 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 automated web traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media Pages
(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 social media 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 attract new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have pages set up with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are lots of social sites you can You can post your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select the ones that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(You can syndicate your content to loads of social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging technology platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free access levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress blog 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 users can follow your account.
There are many different platforms that can be incorporated into your own web traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party services, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress Traffic Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
Your WordPress administration area contains a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As stated 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 specifically configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section and WordPress takes care of 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 on this page can influence web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs summaries 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 view the rest of the content from excerpts, 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 feature is ticked or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to ping all the update services you have listed in the Update Services section when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search engines from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(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 allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using WordPress permalinks here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress Traffic Plugin Settings – Configuration
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help drive more traffic
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with 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, securing your websites is something you simply cannot ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to hackers and bots.
For more information, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages more indexable …
(WordPress Plugin – Yoast SEO)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with their friends and networks can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing to your site with WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social features to their website using WordPress plugins.
Many social sharing plugins let you choose which social sites your content can be shared 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 ‘lock’ content which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring WordPress Traffic Features In Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the layout and design of your website, many themes also provide built-in options for improving SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your site is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic Configuration – Other Don’t Forget These
Last (but by no means least) in the WordPress traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwanted traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of business online (or are planning to), it’s important that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?)
We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to WordPress here:
Tags And Post Categories
Categories & tags help to improve your site’s search optimization, which helps to increase traffic.
(WordPress categories help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s post tags and post categories should be reviewed and set up during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post categories and tags that have been set up.
Add A WordPress 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 website content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although search engines like Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your Site’s 404 Page
When visitors searching online for your site enter the wrong URL or click on an invalid hyperlink, they will typically be greeted with an error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Not Found page)
A 404 Not Found error page can be turned into a useful source of traffic to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then have to do to automatically generate more web traffic is post web content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different components and web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of expertise required to perform this stage of the traffic automation process typically takes some web developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is addressed in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively and drive traffic sustainably using a WordPress-powered website and proven online marketing strategies.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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