Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive traffic automatically to your site using WordPress.
In Part One of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to start driving web traffic is publish content on a regular basis!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase of the automation process. We explained the best way to start 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 site has been built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will discuss the configuration phase of the traffic blueprint. We will show you how to configure a WordPress site to ensure that traffic will automatically start flowing simply by consistently posting web content on your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive on a global scale and are looking for any and every opportunity they can to improve their results and performance online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous competitive advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off to a flying start from the moment their site is launched.
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 an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer you.
Here’s one way to explain the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence plus an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is more labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let me illustrate this point with a joke.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All is running smoothly in the widget assembly line when things suddenly stops.
No one can figure out what’s happened and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert heads directly towards the main control box. After staring silently at the wiring board for less than 2 minutes, the expert then takes out a tiny little hammer from his tool box and makes a very gentle tap near the left-hand side of the unit.
Immediately, everything inside the assembly line starts working once again.
The plant manager is greatly relieved as he thanks the expert, who then leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the factory manager receives a request of payment for services totalling $5,000.
Bewildered to the point of feeling outrage, the factory manager calls the expert. Why did he charge them so much for less than 5 minutes work? He then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives in the manager’s intray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one on the business was able to fix it? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for years spent acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your website or blog configured so all you had to do is publish new content and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems may seem ridiculously simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than simply installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things such as:
- Which plugins need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts need to be set up to achieve desired outcomes
- Which internal and external settings need to be configured to ensure that things will work as envisioned, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This part of the traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing a piece of software, clicking a couple of buttons, or configuring some options and settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration stage is a process that involves your server, your website, and various external sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the configuration phase)
Let’s examine what’s involved.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for site installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings in your web server that affect how you will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your website will attract will be unwanted traffic like bot spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like implementing server-level spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After your web server settings have been checked and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites and/or online services.
External Sites
The idea behind adding external sites is that all content gets posted to one central location (your site) and from there, it then gets automatically distributed to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external services into your configuration, content with links pointing back to your website is automatically published on these platforms. Your content will benefit from additional exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.
Some external sites and solutions will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings to speed up the process 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 Webmasters
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly website or blog)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of important information, SEO tools, and reports about their website.
Once your account is set up, you can use this information with web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data have been set up, traffic monitoring information can be integrated with WordPress using a plugin and and sent to other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Webmaster Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account, you can use this information to automate traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers users the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate these features into your web traffic generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and attract new traffic 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.
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 big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just select the ones that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools (we cover some of these tools in greater detail in the Automation phase).
(There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online technology platforms and content aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. 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 lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own RebelMouse website.
There are various solutions that can be incorporated into your web traffic system. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a configuration strategy 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 settings.
Configuring WordPress For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
WordPress Settings
By default, WordPress includes a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and often overlooked traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings)
As described below the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically configured your site settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(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 your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears 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 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.
The most important setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Generally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to ping various update services whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion
Although this section is mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to sites linked to from your articles, 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
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your permalinks …
(Configuring post permalinks)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks in WordPress here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress Traffic Generation Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
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 matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your website or blog is something you simply cannot afford to ignore.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to attacks from hackers and bots.
More information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your website more search engine friendly …
(SEO plugins help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your website’s SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines to find, crawl and index, it also lets you specify how to display your content to Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content with their own friends and networks can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social features to their site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins allow you to select which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to protect content or downloads which users can unlock by liking your page.
Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes can be configured for better traffic results)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes include built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Features For More Traffic Results
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic, it’s important to plan not only for how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of business online (or plan to), it’s important that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?)
We have created a detailed article about how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your site here:
Post Tags & Categories
Post tags & categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better index your website.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your site’s categories and tags during the Website Planning Phase.
When looking at ways to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and post categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits and results.
Site Map
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. An HTML site map is a web page that links to all other content on your site, while an XML sitemap is mostly code that only search engine bots can understand. Although Google will index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Configure Your Site’s 404 Error Page
When visitors searching for your site type in the wrong web address into their web browser or click on a dead hyperlink, they are greeted with a 404 Not Found page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to recover 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 error page can be set up on your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your WordPress site fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do to start generating more web traffic is publish great content consistently.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various elements and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many web developers months to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is explained in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive series of articles designed to help you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively and drive traffic automatically with a WordPress-driven website and proven marketing methods that are easy to implement.
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