Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to turn your site into an automated traffic generating machine using WordPress.
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do to attract new traffic is add new content regularly!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of the blueprint. We helped you understand 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 existing site has been built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will look at the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. You will learn how a WordPress site should be configured to ensure that web traffic will automatically start flowing whenever you add content on your website.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. With competition making business survival progressively tougher businesses are looking for any and every advantage they believe will help them get better results online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage over other competitors. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website allows their business to get off to a flying start as soon as their website 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 developer but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here’s a simple way to explain the key difference:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence with 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, but also a special type of expertise.
To illustrate this here’s a little story.
Are Experts Worth The Money They Charge?
All was running smoothly in the gizmo plant when things came to a sudden stop.
No one could figure out what happened and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert headed out immediately to the main control box. After staring at the wires and circuitry for 5 minutes, the expert then produced a teeny-weeny hammer and made a very gentle tap near the right edge of the box.
Immediately, everything inside the assembly line sprang to life again.
The plant manager was grateful and relieved as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager received a bill for $5,000.
The manager picked up the phone and called the expert, demanding to know why the expert had charged them such a large amount of money for less than 5 minutes work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived and was placed in the manager’s in-tray. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The number one challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the widget plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt and no one in the business had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to demand fair compensation for having spent years building up the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to quickly repair a very costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog set up so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your site?)
Although the solution to many problems may seem ridiculously easy in hindsight, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services you need to set up to achieve certain outcomes
- Which options need to be configured in order to ensure that things function as planned, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the WordPress traffic automation system may not seem so technically challenging, it can be quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a piece of software, clicking on a button or two, or tweaking some settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and much more.
The configuration phase involves the integration of different parts such as your web server, your web site, and various third-party sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If the steps involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps in more detail.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web hosting account for installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is configuring settings and options in your web-hosting account specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic you can attract will be unwelcome traffic like bot spam, malicious threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for good and unwelcome traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes looking at things like configuring spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After your web server settings have been checked and configured, the next step is to configure a number of external sites.
Third-Party Services
The basic idea of adding external sites is that all content will be published to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get distributed automatically to other parts of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
Once these external platforms have been added to your traffic system, content with links pointing back to your website is automatically added to these platforms. Your content and site will be exposed to a new audience and source of traffic.
Some of these sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site’s settings to help 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 settings:
Google Webmasters
(Google Search Console)
Google Search Console lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides you with a range of essential data, tools and diagnostic reports about your website.
After setting up your account, use this information with web 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 site’s traffic performance, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
After setting up your account and site details, account information can be added to all pages in WordPress using a Google Analytics plugin and automatically sent to many other useful applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account and entering site details with Bing, your account information can be used with traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) 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 are planning to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your automated traffic generation system in Part 4 of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need your various social 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 sites and attract new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and pages set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with and post your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work well with your setup and/or content syndication tools.
(You can post your content to loads of social bookmarking sites. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are many online platforms and content aggregators that can act as secondary sources of traffic. 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 is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your page.
There are various platforms that can be incorporated into your web traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings
By default, your WordPress administration area includes a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress admin menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As stated below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally configured your site settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically notify the update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, this section displays only one entry …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature Of WordPress)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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 readers 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 text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS feeds and blog post digests, and could play a part in 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 a partial feed, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The most important setting here as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility checkbox is ticked or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to instantly notify all the update services you have specified in the Update Services field whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, leave this box 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 posts, 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 Section)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the ways your post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks here: Configuring Your WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Traffic Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to attract more visitors to your site
Blog Defender Security Plugin
Once again, it’s important to configure your site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you simply cannot ignore the importance of website security.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and botnets.
Go here for more information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web content more indexable …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress Plugins For SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can improve your SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google to find and 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 Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds value to readers.
(You can easily add social features to your site using WordPress plugins)
You can add social features to your site easily with WordPress plugins.
Most 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 plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content or downloads which users can unlock by linking or tweeting your page.
WordPress Theme Settings – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, many themes also give you built-in options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a free theme) allow you to configure settings and options for improved traffic results)
With many quality themes, adding social sharing features to your site is as easy as clicking a few buttons to configure your settings and enable the function …
(Many WordPress themes provide built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Settings For More Traffic Results
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
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 bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online, you need to ensure that your website is found to comply with legal requirements of government agencies that regulate how business online is done.
(Is Your Website Compliant?)
For a detailed article about the importance of having a compliant website, go here:
WordPress Post Tags & Categories
Post categories & tags help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which improves traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search optimization.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s tags and categories should be discussed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Process.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the tags and categories that have been set up.
Add A 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 find more of your online content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. HTML site maps provide readers with a an understandable map of how your content is structured, whereas XML sitemaps are mostly filled with code that only search 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 Page
When visitors enter the wrong web address or click on links pointing to destinations on your website that no longer exist, they will normally be presented with a 404 Not Found error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured into a useful source of traffic to your functional web pages …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up in your web server, there are WordPress plugins that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once you have your website or blog fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then to automatically bring web traffic is add content regularly.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site can take many web professionals a long time to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is addressed in the next article in our series.
This is the end of Section 3
To read more, click here:
This article is part of an article series designed to help site owners learn how to grow their business online cost-effectively and drive traffic sustainably with a WordPress-driven website and proven online marketing strategies.
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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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