Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive visitors automatically to your website using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this article 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 is post great content on a consistent basis to attract new traffic!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set things up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we look at the configuration stage of the traffic system. We explain how to configure a WordPress site so you can ensure that visitors will automatically start flowing just by posting fresh content consistently on your website.
WordPress Web Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Being able to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by many business owners as one of their greatest challenges online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive worldwide and are looking for any opportunity they can to get better results online.
The ability to automatically generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage over the competition. An expertly configured website gives you a flying start and a significant advantage online.
The Difference Is In The Way Your Site Is Configured
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 take advantage of everything WordPress can offer.
Here’s a simple way to explain the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence plus an automated online business marketing process!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing system!)
Not only does it take more work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing story.
A Semi-True Story …
All is going according to schedule in the widget-making plant when everything grinds to a sudden halt.
No one can figure out what is wrong and so the plant manager decides to call in an expert.
Promptly after arriving, the expert immediately walks towards the control box. After staring at the circuit board for 3 minutes, the expert then takes out a little hammer from his tool belt and makes a very gentle tap about one cm from the top-right corner of the control unit.
Immediately, the plant springs to life once more.
The floor manager is delighted as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the manager receives an invoice for $5,000.
Angrily, the factory manager calls the expert. Demanding to know why they were charged so much for so little time spent delivering such minimal amount of work, he promptly 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 the envelope, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive new traffic to their sites.
How much money did the plant stand to lose when production ground to a halt 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 demand fair compensation for years spent developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to assess and repair a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have a website or blog fully set up and configured so all you have to do is publish content to it and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be instantly 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 challenges often seems quite simple once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed to get desired functionalities on your site.
- Which services you need to set up to achieve certain results
- Which options need to be configured in order to ensure that everything functions as envisioned, etc.
(Generating new traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires expertise)
Although this part of the traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite complicated. This is because it’s not just about installing one or two plugins, tweaking some settings in your admin area … it’s all this and much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of many different parts such as your web server, your website, and a number of third-party sites …
(The configuration phase involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we create a simple diagram of the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplified diagram showing the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine what’s involved.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your server that affect how your site will handle 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 traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic you will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires planning for good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like implementing spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your server settings and configuring these, the next step is to configure a number of third-party sites and/or online solutions.
External Accounts
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all of your content should be published from a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will get syndicated automatically to other parts of your traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external services into your network, content linked back to your site is automatically published on your search, social and aggregator accounts. Your content and site will benefit from exposure online, helping your business tap into new audiences and new sources of traffic.
Some of these external web properties and online services 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:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Webmasters)
Google Webmasters lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with important information, tools, and reports about their website.
Once your account has been set up, this information can be used with traffic 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, user engagement, marketing activities, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, search engine referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account has been set up, traffic monitoring information can be added to WordPress using any of several Google Analytics plugins and and fed to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account, you can use this information with traffic-related settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress provides users with a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you are planning to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your web traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new visitors 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 and social bookmarking accounts and drive new traffic to your site.
Make sure you have set up profiles with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to go crazy, just pick those that will work with your setup and/or content sharing tools.
(There are loads of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Services, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging web platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some are paid services.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add your WordPress site feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your own RebelMouse website.
There are various solutions that can be incorporated into your own traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up external site accounts, it’s time to configure WordPress.
Configuring WordPress For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to ensure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress – Global Settings
By default, all WordPress installations include a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Sections like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings Section)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
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 specifically chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services field
By default, when WordPress is installed, this section includes only one entry …
(WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(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
This section affects how visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence web traffic. For example, choosing 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 play a part in someone’s choice to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to get the rest of the content from summaries, 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 feature is enabled or not.
Generally, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to automatically ping various update services whenever new posts get published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Settings Menu – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion
Although the settings in this section 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 …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to publish posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways your post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using WordPress permalinks here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Plugins
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for handling 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, securing your web sites is something you cannot ignore.
(WordPress Security Plugins help prevent bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your blog invisible to botnets and hackers.
Go here for more information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web pages easy for search engines like Google to find, classify and index …
(WP Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your site’s search engine optimization. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it also lets you specify how to present your content in Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to share your content online can help boost traffic to your site, especially if you provide great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social sharing to your website with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing to their website with WordPress plugins.
Many social sharing plugins let you choose which social sites visitors can share your content to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default update 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 pages which users can unlock by liking your page.
WordPress Theme Settings – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring layout and design aspects of your website, many themes also include built-in features that let you improve SEO and site linking structure for better indexing, easily add tracking, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes allow you to configure options and settings for better traffic results)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing buttons to your site is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to configure your options and enable the function …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
Other Areas To Configure For Increased 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.
These include:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for an increase in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and unwanted traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you are making money online (or are planning to), you need to make sure that your site stays compliant with all regulations.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?)
If you need help adding legal pages to WordPress, see this article:
WordPress Post Tags And Post Categories
WordPress categories & tags help search engines better organize and index your web pages, which helps to increase traffic.
(Post categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.)
As we recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your site’s post tags and categories during the Website Planning Stages.
When considering ways to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and post categories that have been set up.
Add A Site Map
A visitor site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external sites discover more of your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for site visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. HTML site maps are web pages that provide readers with a logical map of how your content is structured, while XML sitemaps are mostly filled with code that only search engines can interpret. Although Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which a plugin like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – A Source Of Lost Traffic Opportunities!
When visitors enter the wrong web address or click on a link pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they are presented with a 404 Not Found page …
(A 404 Not Found page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 error page can be set up on your web server, there are several plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress Traffic Automation System: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your website has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you have to do is add fresh content consistently to start generating more web traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate , requiring the configuration and integration of different components and external web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The expertise required to perform the configuration stage of the traffic automation process can take many web developers months to acquire.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is explained in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Part 3
To continue reading, click on the link below:
This tutorial is part of a comprehensive tutorial series aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business online with a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven marketing strategies that are easy and quick to implement.
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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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