Welcome to Part Three of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn a website into an automated traffic generation machine using the WordPress CMS.
In Part One of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated web traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to start generating more traffic is add new content consistently!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the blueprint. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set things up if you already have a website, and what to do if your site was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we will look at the configuration phase of the traffic system. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to automatically begin bringing traffic simply by posting content to your site.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive on a global scale and are researching every advantage they can to increase their competitiveness online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand is a huge advantage over other competitors. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website means having a significant advantage from the very beginning.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website developer but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here is 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 process!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing process!)
Not only is more labor required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing system into your website, but also a special kind of expert knowledge.
Allow me to illustrate this point with a joke.
Knowing Where To Tap
All is going fine in the gizmo-making plant when all of a sudden, everything comes to a stop.
As no one can figure out what is wrong, the plant manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert goes immediately to the main control box. After staring silently at the wiring board for less than 2 minutes, the expert then produces a little hammer from his pocket and makes a very gentle tap about 2 inches from the left corner of the box.
Immediately, the whole workshop lights up and comes back to life.
The manager is delighted as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager receives a bill for $5,000.
Bewildered and bordering on a sense of outrage, the manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why they have been charged such an exorbitant fee for less than 5 minutes work, he promptly requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The #1 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 widget plant stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise required to fix it? Did the expert in our story not have the right to ask to be compensated fairly for spending years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to assess and avert a potentially costly crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WP blog configured so all you had to do is publish new content and search engines, social media and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
While the solution to many problems is often ridiculously simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few internal settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which plugins need to be installed to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which services you need to set up to achieve specific results
- Which options need to be configured in order to ensure that processes will run as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite involved and time-consuming. It’s not just about installing and configuring a plugin, clicking on a button or two, or tweaking some settings in your admin area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of many parts such as your web server, your site, and various external sites and/or online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram of the configuration process)
Let’s examine what’s involved in more detail.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web-hosting account settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your business may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like integrating spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirects, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these, the next step is to configure various external sites and services.
External Sites & Accounts – Configuration
The concept behind adding external sites is that all of your content should be published from a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, get distributed automatically to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once you incorporate these external sites into your setup, content with links pointing back to your website gets automatically syndicated to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and website will be given exposure to new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some third-party sites and online services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your settings to help save time 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 settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Search Console)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with useful data, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
Once your account and site details are set up, use this information to integrate and automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing efforts, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your account and site data, account code can be added to WordPress using a simple Google Analytics plugin used with other applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account is with Bing have been set up, the details can be used with web traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you are planning to build a professional web presence.
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 explain how to integrate these features into your web traffic generation system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Sites
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and get new visitors to your site)
You will need your 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 get new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have set up accounts and profile pages with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can You can post your content to loads of social sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just select those that will work well with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many new online web platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some are paid services.
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 social profiles and RSS feeds. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your page.
There are various solutions you can incorporate into your traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your site’s settings.
WordPress Site Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
By default, your WordPress admin area includes a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As described 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 intentionally configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services box
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section lists only one entry …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress …
(You can 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 your content gets seen by readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence web 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 content 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 your traffic system is concerned, however, the main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Typically, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked enables your site to instantly notify all the update services you have specified in the Update Services area whenever 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 unchecked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
Although discussion settings 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 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings Section)
Permalink Settings
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your SEO-friendly URLs …
(Configuring post permalinks)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using permalinks in WordPress here: Configuring WordPress Permalinks
Plugin Settings
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality to your site, including traffic generation.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to bring more visitors to your site
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with the effects of both good traffic and bad traffic. No web site is guaranteed immunity from cyber-attacks.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to hackers and botnets.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO …
(SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving your website’s ability to rank better in search engines)
Use a plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your SEO. Properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to find, crawl and index, it also lets you specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds real value to readers.
(WordPress users can easily add social features to their site with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily with WordPress plugins.
Most social plugins allow you to select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your pages which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Theme Settings
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring layout and design elements of your website, many themes also include built-in options for improving SEO and site navigation structure for faster indexing, add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) include built-in traffic optimization features)
With many WordPress themes, adding social sharing buttons to your content is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase 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 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 Compliant?)
If you need help understanding how to quickly and easily add legal pages to your WordPress website, see this article:
Post Categories And Tags
WordPress tags & categories help search engines index your pages, which improves traffic.
(Categories help to improve your site’s search optimization, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to set up your site’s post tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, 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.
HTML Site Map
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications find more of your web 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 things. Although search engines like Google will index your pages 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 Error Page – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When visitors searching online for your website enter the wrong web address or click on links pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they will typically be presented with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 error page) …
(A WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website or blog has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do then is publish fresh content consistently to start generating more traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and external web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The expertise required to perform this process typically takes some website developers a long time 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 explained in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation System series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven web marketing methods.
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