Welcome to Part 3 of our WordPress Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive traffic automatically to your website using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website or blog is the key to automating traffic to your site …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to automatically attract web traffic is publish web content on a regular basis!)
In Part Two, we discussed the setup phase of this process. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your website was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration stage of this process. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured to bring visitors automatically when you post new content on your site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration Phase
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming ever more competitive and are looking for any advantage available to increase their competitiveness online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage. An expertly configured WordPress site gives your business a flying start and a significant competitive advantage online.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by a web-building expert 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 professional web presence plus an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only are more steps needed to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
Allow me to illustrate this point with a little story.
Knowing Where To Tap
Everything was going fine in the widget factory when suddenly, things ground to a halt.
No one could figure out what was wrong and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Shortly after arriving, the expert headed immediately towards the control box. After staring at the wiring board for about 3 minutes or so, the expert then took out a teensy-weensy hammer and made a single tap about 2 cm from the left-hand edge of the unit.
Immediately, every machine returned to normal.
The manager was greatly overjoyed as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager received a request for payment of $5,000.
The factory manager dialed the expert, demanding to know why he had charged them so much for less than five minutes work and promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, a bill of payment arrived and was placed on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The main challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors consistently to their sites.
How much money did the factory stand to lose when the equipment ground to a halt and no one on the business was able to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for having spent years developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and fix a costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a blog fully set up and configured so all you ever 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 you save?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
Although the solution to many problems is often quite easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to work things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site involves more than installing a website and configuring a few basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed for specific things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services need to be set up to achieve specific results
- Which options you need to configure to make sure everything will function how you have planned, etc.
(Generating traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
This stage of the traffic automation system is not technically difficult, but it’s quite complicated. The reason why is because it’s not just about installing and configuring a piece of software, tweaking some settings in your admin area … it’s all of this and much more.
The configuration stage involves the integration of many different components including your web hosting server, your WP site, and a number of external sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few settings in WordPress)
If the activities involved in the configuration process were to be flowcharted, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine what’s involved.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for site installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your server that affect how you will handle 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 welcome traffic. Some of the web traffic your website will attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about planning for good and bad traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like integrating spam protection and securing server files, to configuring domain and email redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like emails, page error redirections, etc?)
After your server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites and services.
External Sites & Solutions – Configuration
The basic idea of adding external sites is that all of your content will get published from one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get automatically distributed to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After incorporating these external sites into your traffic network, content linking back to your website will be automatically fed to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your business will receive exposure online, helping your business tap into a whole new audience and traffic source.
Some third-party sites and solutions will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site 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:
Google Search Console
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly site)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with a range of useful information, tools and reports about your website.
After setting up your account, you can use your account information with web traffic-related settings and notifications 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 efforts, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine and social media referrers, etc.
After setting up your Once you have set up Google Analytics, you can add traffic monitoring code to all of your pages in WordPress using a Google Analytics plugin and feed data automatically to many other applications and web properties.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your Bing Webmaster Tools account and site details have been set up, you can use this information with web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part Two, WordPress provides users with the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to build a professional web presence.
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 show you how to integrate these features into your web traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your social media and social bookmarking accounts before you can 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 pages and attract new traffic to your site.
You should set up accounts and profiles with all the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with and syndicate your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose those that will work well with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(There are many social bookmarking sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of online platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary-level traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add an RSS feed from your website …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your RebelMouse page.
There are various technologies and third-party applications you can incorporate into your traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you would like to explore your options and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure WordPress.
Configuring Your WordPress Site
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings – WordPress
By default, WordPress includes a Settings section that allows you to set up your site’s main settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search indexing, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains one of the most powerful and often overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress users …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As stated in this 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 prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services box
By default, this section contains only one entry …
(WordPress Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list containing all of the update services you want notified to this section …
(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
This section affects how visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to get 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 main setting in this section as far as traffic is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Generally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to automatically notify the update services list when 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 …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Section)
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)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
The examples below show some of the options for configuring your site’s post permalinks …
(Configuring search-friendly URLS)
To learn more about setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Configuring WordPress Permalinks
Configuring WordPress Traffic Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality to your site, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
Let’s take a brief look at 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 WordPress site for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is immune from being attacked by hackers.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to malicious attacks from hackers and bots.
More info:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages more search engine friendly …
(Yoast SEO – WP SEO Plugin)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) to improve your site’s search engine optimization. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines to index, it allows you to specify how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content online can help drive more traffic to your site, especially if you publish content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social features to your site easily using WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing features to their site using free or inexpensive 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 custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of shares), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content sections on your site which users can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring Settings – WP Themes
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 layout and design aspects of your site, many themes also give you built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for faster indexing, add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes like Graphene (a free theme) come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons and enabling the feature …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
Configuring Other WordPress Areas
Last but not least in the web traffic configuration process, are the components that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
This includes the following:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase 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 when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you are making money online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your website is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
WordPress Post Categories And Tags
Post tags & categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better understand and index your website.
(Post categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your website.)
As we recommend in this article, your website’s post tags and post categories should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Stages.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories that have been set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications find your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are different things. Although Google will index your pages just using an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When visitors searching for your website enter the wrong web address or click on a dead link, they will normally be greeted with a 404 page …
(A 404 Not Found error page)
A 404 Error Page can redirect confused visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Process – Summary
Once your site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then is add content on a consistent basis to automatically drive more web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(WordPress Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The kind of knowledge and expertise required to perform the configuration phase of the traffic automation process typically takes some website developers 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 addressed in the next section of the WordPress Traffic System series.
This is the end of Part 3
To read more, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of tutorials aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business with a WordPress website and proven web marketing strategies.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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