Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part One of this article series, we provided an overview of the process, and 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, all you have to do is add great content consistently to automatically generate web traffic!)
In Part Two, we focused on critical setup decisions. We explained the best way to start 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 has been built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section, we discuss the configuration stage of the WordPress traffic automation system. The focus of this section is to help you understand why an expertly configured WordPress site is different than a professionally configured website. You will also learn how much work needs to be done to make sure that when all is fully set up and configured, you can automatically attract new traffic whenever you add web content on your web site.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by website owners as their greatest challenge online. Businesses are becoming increasingly more competitive worldwide and are looking for any opportunity they can to get better results online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can be a tremendous competitive advantage. For WordPress users, having an expertly configured website means having an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a significant 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 difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a web presence with online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does it take extra labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, but also a special type of expert knowledge.
To illustrate this point here’s a story.
Ludicrous Or Fair? You Decide …
Everything is going just fine in the gizmo factory when things come to a sudden stop.
As no one can figure out what’s wrong, the plant manager decides to call in an expert.
Shortly after arriving, the expert immediately heads to the main control box. After staring silently at the wiring diagrams for less than 2 minutes or so, the expert then produces a teensy-weensy little hammer from his shirt pocket and makes a very gentle tap about one cm from the bottom-right edge of the box.
Immediately, the plant springs back to life.
The plant manager is grateful and relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager receives a bill for $5,000.
Unable to hide his anger and sense of outrage, the factory manager picks up the phone and calls the expert. Demanding to know why they have been charged such a ludicrous fee for less than 5 minutes work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving web traffic to their sites.
How much money did the widget factory stand to lose when the machines stopped working and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to get paid fairly for having spent years developing the knowledge and expertise that enabled him to immediately avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a WP web site set up so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be immediately 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 site?)
While the solution to many problems is often ridiculously easy once implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you are trying to work things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site is more than installing a website and configuring site settings for a client. It requires knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs need to be installed for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which 3rd-party services you need to set up and activate to achieve desired outcomes
- Which options you need to configure to make sure everything functions how you expect, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically difficult, but it’s quite involved and complicated. It’s not as simple as installing a solution, clicking a button, or tweaking some settings in your admin area … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration phase is a process that involves your web hosting server, your website or blog, and a number of third-party sites …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we were to create a simplified flowchart showing all the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart of all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s examine these steps in more detail.
Your Web Server – Configuration
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your hosting account for installation purposes. What we are talking about, is tweaking settings in your hosting account specifically for handling all web traffic …
(During the configuration phase, your web-hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your business will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This area of the configuration process, therefore, is about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and bad traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like spam protection and security threat prevention, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up 404 error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like emails, page errors, etc?)
After your web server settings have been fine-tuned and configured (if required), the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and services.
External Sites
The purpose of choosing external sites is that all content is published to one central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it radiates outwards automatically to other components of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external services into your configuration, content with links pointing back to your website will be automatically syndicated to search, social and aggregator accounts. Your business will then be given additional exposure to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some third-party sites will need to be set up before configuring your settings to help save time 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:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you tell Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of useful data, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site details, you can use this information with web traffic settings in WordPress and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s performance, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details are set up, you can add traffic monitoring code to all of your pages in WordPress via a simple Google Analytics plugin and feed data instantly to various other applications.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Search Console. Once your account and site details with Bing are set up, use the account information to automate traffic settings in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As discussed in Part 2, WordPress provides users with a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful tools, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. 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 article series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need your social media and social bookmarking accounts set up 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 drive new visitors to your site.
You should have accounts and pages set up with all the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up and post your content to. You don’t need to go crazy, just choose the ones that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools (we will look at some of these tools in greater detail in the Automation phase).
(There are loads of social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Platforms, RSS Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online technology platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free levels, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add an RSS feed from your WordPress blog …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content displays in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse website.
There are various platforms that can be incorporated into your own traffic blueprint. Please feel free to contact us if you need assistance exploring this area further, or to discuss a configuration strategy to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with external services, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website
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 points.
WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress administration area includes a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can influence your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(WordPress Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains an important and often overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Section)
As described below the Update Services section,
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, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services section
By default, only one service is available …
(Update Services)
You can notify dozens of update services automatically …
(You can 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 your content gets seen by visitors when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings in this section can have an influence traffic. For example, your choice of displaying the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays to users in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your site further, and whether or not they will visit your blog to read the rest of the content from summaries, 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 here is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Typically, you would want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically notify various update services when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, do not check this box …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion
Although this section is mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to blogs 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)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow your site to display posts with SEO-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalink Settings)
Here are some of the options for configuring your permalinks …
(Configuring permalinks)
We have written a detailed tutorial about using permalinks in WordPress here: Improve Your WordPress SEO With Permalinks
Plugins
The WordPress developer community makes available thousands of plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality to your website, including plugins with features that help to improve traffic generation.
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 site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No matter what kind of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of securing your website or blog.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to hackers and bots.
Go here to learn more:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web content easy for search engines to index …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by making your website more search engine friendly)
Use a powerful plugin like Yoast SEO to improve your SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines like Google to find and index, it also lets you configure how your content will show up in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with others online can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you post content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social features to your website easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
You can add social sharing buttons to your website easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins.
Many social plugins allow you to select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom post messages, 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 visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
Configuring Settings – WordPress Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your website, many themes also include built-in options for improving search optimization and site navigation structure for better indexing, add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) have built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing features to your website is as easy as clicking a couple of buttons to enable the function …
(Many WordPress themes provide users with built-in social sharing features)
Additional Areas Of WordPress To Configure For Improved Traffic Results
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Website Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you engage in any form of business online, you need to ensure that your site stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Is Your Website Or Blog Compliant?)
To learn more about the importance of having a compliant website, see this article:
Post Tags & Post Categories
Categories & post tags help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which helps you get more traffic.
(WordPress categories help search engines index your pages, which helps you get more traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, it’s best to discuss and set up your site’s tags and categories earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the tags and categories you have set up.
A Site Map Of Your Posts And Pages
A visitor site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external sites discover more of your web content …
(A site map is not just great for visitors, but for web traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Although search engines like Google will index your site 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 can result in increased traffic.
404 Error Page – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When visitors searching online for your site type in the wrong URL into their browser or click on an invalid hyperlink, they are presented with an error – page not found message (known as a 404 error page) …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up on your server, there are plugins for WordPress that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your site expertly configured and fully set up, all you have to do is publish web content consistently to begin bringing web traffic organically.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is 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 involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some web developers months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as can be automated. This step is addressed in the next section of the WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive tutorial series designed to help website owners learn how to grow their business with a WordPress website or blog and proven online marketing methods.
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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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