Welcome to Part Three of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive visitors automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to start attracting web traffic is post web content regularly!)
In Part 2, we discussed critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to start if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we will discuss the configuration stage of this process. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to automatically drive web traffic whenever you post content to your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive on a global scale and are looking for any advantage available to increase their competitiveness online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous advantage over the competition. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off with a flying start from the moment their site is launched.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
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 builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to describe the differences:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a web presence and online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and an automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does a whole lot more work go into building and integrating an automated online business marketing system into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing little story.
Knowing Where To Tap
All is going fine in the gizmo assembly plant when suddenly, the equipment comes to a halt.
No one can figure out what went wrong and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Soon afterward, the expert arrives and, without saying a word, goes immediately to the control box. After staring silently at the control unit for about 2 minutes or so, the expert then takes out a teeny-weeny hammer and makes a gentle tap near the top-left edge of the unit.
Immediately, everything returns to normal.
The manager is greatly relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a request of payment for services totalling $5,000.
Furious, the manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them such a large amount of money for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work, he then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrives in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive traffic to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when production stopped working and no one in the factory floor 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 years spent building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to immediately assess and fix a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WP site set up so all you had to do is publish new content and search engines, social sites and dozens of other online properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
Although the solution to many challenges often seems ridiculously simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring some basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which accounts you need to set up and activate to achieve certain results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure to ensure that things will work as envisioned, etc.
(Driving web 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. It’s not as simple as installing one or two plugins, clicking on a button or two … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many parts such as your server, your website, and various third-party sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we create a simple flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at these areas.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about fine-tuning settings in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your site will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, malicious threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This part of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like configuring server-level spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of external sites.
External Sites
The idea behind setting up external sites is that all of your content should be posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will radiate outwards to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you add these external platforms to your configuration, content pointing back to your website is automatically posted to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your site will be exposed to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of these third-party sites and solutions will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site 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 Search Console
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Search Console lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of essential data, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account with Google Webmasters are set up, use the account information to integrate and automate traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
After setting up your up your account and entered your site data, you can add tracking code to WordPress using a simple Google Analytics plugin and feed data automatically to many other useful applications and web properties.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account and site details are set up, use this information with web traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress offers website owners a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to grow a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your automated web traffic system in the next installment of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site)
You will need to set up your social media and social bookmarking accounts 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 accounts and drive new visitors to your site.
You should have pages set up with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
There are many social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick those that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(There are loads of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your page.
There are various technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your own traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up third-party service accounts, it’s time to configure your WordPress site.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
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 modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains an important and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Area)
As described in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have specifically configured your settings 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
With an ‘out of the box’ WordPress installation, this section contains only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
You can 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 …
(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
***
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 in this section can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to read 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 traffic is concerned, however, the main setting here is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to notify your list of update services when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Global 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 blogs linked to from your content, 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 …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings enable your site to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings Section)
The examples below show some of the ways permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
To learn more about setting up WP permalinks, see this tutorial: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring WordPress Traffic Generation Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that can add almost every kind 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
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No website or blog is immune from cyberattacks.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets.
Go here to learn more:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages easily indexable …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress SEO Plugin)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your SEO. Once properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily with free or inexpensive plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website with free or inexpensive plugins.
Many social sharing plugins let you choose which sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which visitors can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring design and layout aspects of your site, many themes also provide built-in options for improving search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add analytics, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a free theme) can be configured for improved traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your site is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic System Configuration – Additional Areas
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with good and unwelcome traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Legally Compliant?)
If you need help adding compliance pages to WordPress, see this article:
WordPress Tags & Post Categories
Post categories and post tags help search engines better organize and index your website, which helps you get more traffic.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to review and set up your website’s post tags and post categories during the Website Planning Stage.
When configuring your site to automate and improve traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and categories have been correctly set up to deliver optimal benefits.
A Site Map Of Your Pages and Posts
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 sites discover your website content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although search engines like Google will index your site just using 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 Not Found – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When visitors searching for your website enter the wrong web address or click on a link pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they are greeted with an error page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover 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 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.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once you have your site expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do to attract more traffic is post content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The knowledge and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some web professionals a long time to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is covered in the next section of our series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read the rest of this article, 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 using a WordPress website and proven marketing strategies that are easy to implement.
Subscribe To Our Site And Get Notified When New WordPress Tutorials Get Published!
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org
***