Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this article series, we provided an overview of the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do is add fresh content on a regular basis to automatically begin bringing more web traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at critical setup decisions. We explained 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 website was built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this article, we look at the configuration phase of the traffic system. We will show you how a WordPress site should be configured in order to automatically begin bringing visitors simply by publishing new content on your WordPress site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration
The ability to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive on a global scale and are researching every advantage they believe will improve their results online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage over the competition. 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 Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to understand the differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence and an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is additional work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
Everything is going fine in the widget-making manufacturing plant when all of a sudden, things stops.
No one can figure out what is wrong and so the floor manager decides to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Soon afterward, the expert arrives and, without uttering a word, walks directly towards the control box. After staring at the schematics for no more than 2 minutes or so, the expert then produces a tiny little hammer and makes a very gentle tap near the right corner of the unit.
Immediately, the plant springs to life again.
The floor manager is delighted as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a request for payment of services rendered totalling $5,000.
Unable to contain his anger and sense of outrage, the manager picks up the phone and rings the expert. Why did he charge them so much for so little time delivering such minimal amount of work? He promptly requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrives and is placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors to their sites.
How much money did the widget factory stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the factory floor was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have every right to get paid fairly for having invested years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to quickly avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a web site fully set up and configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest 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 attracting new visitors to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems is often quite simple in hindsight, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than just installing a website and configuring some basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up and activated to achieve certain outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure to make sure everything will work as planned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem technically challenging, it can be quite involved. It’s not as simple as installing and configuring a plugin, configuring some options and settings in your dashboard area or clicking a button … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of a number of different parts such as your server, your website, and a number of external sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these steps in more detail.
Your Server – Configuration
We’re not talking 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 tweaking settings in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your hosting account 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 website can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for both bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
Once your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various external sites.
Integration With External Services
The idea behind adding external sites is that all of your content should be published from a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will automatically be syndicated to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external platforms into your setup, content linking back to your website will be automatically fed to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your site will then be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some of these external sites will need to be set up before configuring your settings 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 before configuring your WordPress site’s settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmasters lets you notify 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 reports about their website.
After setting up your Google Search Console account and entering site details, use this information with traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s traffic results, SEO, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up your Google Analytics account, traffic monitoring information can be easily integrated with WordPress using a plugin used with other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your account and site data with Bing Webmaster Tools have been set up, the information can be used to integrate and automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers website owners the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to build a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great 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 generation system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media Pages
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need your various social media and social bookmarking accounts set up before you can 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 attract new visitors to your site.
You should set up accounts with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up and syndicate your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick the ones that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we discuss some of these tools in greater detail further below and during the Automation phase).
(You can post your content to many social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and content aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your account.
There are various platforms that can be incorporated into your own web traffic blueprint. Please 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 server settings and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress – Configuring Your 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.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
The WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains a powerful and often overlooked 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 or your webmaster have specifically chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the list of update services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, this section displays 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 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 your content gets seen by readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to read the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The most important setting here as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables your site to ping the list of update services when new posts get 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 unticked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion Settings
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 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 …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow your site to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the ways your permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks in WordPress here: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add almost every kind of functionality imaginable to your site, including many plugins that improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that improve traffic generation
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, securing your web sites is something you cannot afford to ignore.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and bots.
To learn more, go here:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages more search engine friendly …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help increase traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your website’s SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it allows you to configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily using WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social share plugins allow you to choose which 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 shares), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to protect content which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring Settings – WordPress Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site navigation structure for faster indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic Configuration – Additional Sections
Last (but by no means least) in the traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both 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 do any kind of business online (or are planning to), you need to make sure that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help understanding the importance of having a compliant website, see this article:
Post Tags And Categories
Post categories and tags help to improve your site’s search optimization, which helps to increase traffic.
(WordPress post categories help to improve your site’s search optimization, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s categories and tags should be discussed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phases.
When configuring your website to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the tags and categories you have set up.
Add A Site Map To Your WordPress Site
A visitor site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover more of your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page – An Additional Source Of Traffic!
When visitors type in the wrong URL into their web browser or click on a hyperlink pointing to a destination on your website that no longer exists, they are greeted with an error page …
(A WordPress 404 Not Found page)
A 404 Not Found page can redirect confused visitors 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 web server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do to start generating new traffic is add new content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and external web properties …
(WP Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The skills and knowledge involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some web professionals months to acquire.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is covered in the next article in the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part Three
To continue reading, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive article series aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business with a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven web marketing strategies.
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