Welcome to Part Three of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a website into an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website, all you have to do to automatically begin attracting more web traffic is post web content consistently!)
In Part 2, we discussed the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to get started 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 website has been built using WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress website or blog on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to bring new traffic automatically when you publish content to your site.
WordPress Web Traffic Automation System – Configuration
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With business becoming so much more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth exploring any opportunity you can to increase your own competitiveness online.
Being able to automatically generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage. With an expertly configured WordPress site, your business has a flying start and a significant advantage online.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website 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:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only are more steps required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expertise.
To illustrate this here’s a joke.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
All was running smoothly in the widget-making assembly line when things came to a sudden stop.
No one could figure out what went wrong and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and, without saying a word, walked immediately towards the main control box. After staring at the box for less than 2 minutes or so, the expert then produced a teensy-weensy little hammer from his utility belt and made a very gentle tap about one inch from the left-hand corner of the box.
Immediately, everything inside the workshop started working as before.
The floor 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 factory manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The manager dialled the expert, demanding to know why they were expected to pay so much for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work and then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice statement arrived on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one on the business had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to get paid fairly for having invested years acquiring the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to quickly avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your site set up so all you had to do is publish content to it 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 driving traffic to your website?)
Although the solution to many challenges can seem ridiculously simple once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to figure things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than simply installing a website and configuring a few internal settings. It also requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which 3rd-party accounts you need to set up to achieve specific results
- Which options you need to configure in order to ensure that processes will work as expected, etc.
(Generating 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 involved. This is because it’s not as easy as installing and configuring a solution, clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase is a process that involves your server, your web site, and a number of external sites …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If all the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the configuration process)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved in more detail.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your web server specifically for handling web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic you can attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email forwarding, setting up htaccess file redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step is to configure various third-party sites and services.
External Sites
The concept behind choosing external sites is that all of your content is posted to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it radiates outwards automatically to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once these external services have been added to your network, content linked back to your site will be automatically added to your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and site will be given additional exposure to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some external sites will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress settings to speed up the 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 site’s settings:
Google Search Console
(Google Search Console)
Google Webmasters lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential information, SEO tools and reports about your website.
Once your Google Webmasters account is set up, this information can be used with traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, account data can be integrated with WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and and sent to other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account and site data have been set up, this information can be used with web traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress offers both a hosted and a self-hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to build a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, 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 these features into your automated traffic system in Part Four of this article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social media and social bookmarking accounts in order to configure these as part of 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 get new visitors to your site.
You should have profiles set up with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are many social sites you can You can post your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will review some of these tools in more detail further below and in the Automation phase).
(You can syndicate your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary 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 allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your social feed.
There are many different technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your own traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore some of these and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website For Traffic
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings section)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains an important and often overlooked traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – 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 chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services field
By default, only one service is available …
(WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress – just add a list of update services to this section and WordPress takes care of the rest …
(WordPress lets you 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 in this section can influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs summaries of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could affect someone’s decision to explore your site 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 most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is enabled or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked enables WordPress to automatically ping various update services whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion Settings
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 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)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings Screen)
Here are some of the options for configuring your permalinks …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Configuring WordPress Permalinks
WordPress – Traffic Generation Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is completely safe from a cyber attack.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to bots and hackers.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages more search engine friendly …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress Plugin)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find and index, it also lets you specify how to display your content in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with members of their social networks can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site using free or inexpensive plugins)
You can add social sharing features to your site easily with free or inexpensive plugins.
Most social share plugins allow you to choose which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
Configuring WordPress Traffic Generation Theme Features
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can 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 include built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, easily 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 content is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
WordPress Traffic Configuration – Additional Sections
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic configuration process, are the things that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can damage your business when more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online, you need to make sure that your site complies with all government legal requirements.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
We have created a detailed article about how to quickly and easily add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog here:
WordPress Categories And Tags
WordPress post categories & tags help search engines better organize and index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(WordPress post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to classify and index your pages.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your site’s post tags and post categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories you have set up.
HTML Site Map
A site map that displays all of your pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications find more of your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. HTML site maps are web pages that provide users with a an understandable representation of how your content is organized, whereas XML sitemaps are code that only search engine bots can understand. Although search engines like Google will index your site just using an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
Your Site’s 404 Error Page
When visitors searching for your website type in the wrong web address or click on a dead link, they are presented with a 404 Not Found page …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then to automatically begin attracting web traffic is post great content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The skills and knowledge required to perform this phase 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 process. This step is explained in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint 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 article series designed to help site owners learn how to grow their business using a WordPress-powered website and proven web marketing methods.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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